H.I.V. was found to be evolving toward mildness, male Ebola survivors were urged to handle their semen with care, and an extensive review of scientific literature confirmed that loneliness is a disease. Surveys conducted using the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale suggested that U.S. high school students were becoming less lonely, and Hiroshi Ishiguro, a Japanese roboticist, continued getting plastic surgery in order to look more like his robot. “Androids,” he explained, “never get old.” The friends of people with social anxiety disorder say those friendships are not subpar. Peruvian children born in 1997 and 1998 were stunted by El Niño. Of the 15,518 U.S. children who ate laundry-detergent pods during a recent one-year period, 1,754 were treated with snacks, eight were treated with fresh air, and one was treated with catharsis. Between 1990 and 2011, 110,506 children were admitted to U.S. emergency rooms with injuries from toy weapons, while 65,495 were injured pretending. British and American children whose diapers are changed on raised surfaces are likelier to fall from furniture. The more severe a Swedish father’s criminality, the lower his son’s intelligence. Americans who cry at their child’s graduation are the most likely to wish to pinch a baby’s cheeks. Hidden Chinese persists in the brains of French-Canadian infants adopted from China. Babies remember the good times better.
A study of Australians with teeth missing concluded that dentures are often unnecessary. The Valle de Aguán spiny-tailed iguana is threatened by Hondurans’ preference for eating gravid females. Although capuchin monkeys share several irrational economic behaviors with humans, they are not similarly deceived by high-priced luxury foods. Bankers behave more dishonestly when reminded that they are bankers. Poor Americans who feel wealthy oppose redistributive economic policies. Distrust of law enforcement discourages Latinos from calling 9-1-1 to report heart attacks. A postdoctoral scholar at UCLA’s Bureau of Glottal Affairs found that the speech of dominant French, Italian, and Portuguese men has substantial internal pitch variation, while San Diego State University psychologists found that the speech of people who acquire power becomes monotonous, loud, and high-pitched. Speakers of sign language supply intonation with facial melodies. A single neuron combines the visual signals of a jumping spider’s eight eyes.
Polar Biology reported that a king penguin in the sub-Antarctic fought off opportunistic attacks by sheathbills and giant petrels attracted to its bloody cloaca after it was raped by a fur seal, in Zambia an elephant fought off fourteen lionesses, in South Africa a porcupine fought off thirteen lionesses and four lions, in Maine voters chose to continue baiting bears with doughnuts, and in the Yukon drunken Bohemian waxwings were detained in modified hamster cages. The calls of individual superb fairy wrens can be distinguished by the birds’ embryos. The eggs of Northumbrian eider ducks were being damaged by fish and chips. Entomologists who placed a single potato chip, a tenth of a hot dog, and a cookie in small cages around Manhattan discovered that within twenty-four hours 32 percent of the food had been eaten by insects. Dominant male tilapia have better bladder control. World Cup soccer players with wide faces commit more fouls and score more goals. New Zealanders with poor credit scores have older hearts. Jamaican sprinters have highly symmetrical knees. Kenyan long-distance runners have highly efficient brain oxygenation. Nestlé researchers continued to work on bottling exercise. The first human art was found to be a zigzag engraved in a Pseudodon shell on the banks of the Solo River 500,000 years ago.
Shadow 10, Shadow 12, and Shadow 16, silkscreens by John Stezaker, whose work was on view in November at Petzel, in New York City. Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York City
