Americans experiencing a medical emergency in public receive assistance from bystanders 4.2 percent of the time if they are white and 1.8 percent of the time if they are black, and income inequality has been growing among the elderly. Mexican doctors reported diphallia in a dead eighty-three-year-old man free of other malformations. Finnish researchers found erogenous zones to be more expansive during partnered sex than during masturbation. Women in the United States who move to areas of higher socioeconomic status buy shoes whose heel heights conform to local norms; those who move to areas of lower socioeconomic status retain their previous heel preference. If a white Frenchwoman’s face is beautiful, a white Frenchman needs fewer neurons to encode it. Cookiecutter sharks were confirmed to be taking bites out of living whales. A male black-horned tree cricket restricted to a diet of Gala apples and water will consume his own spermatophore after a failed mating attempt. The greater the racial pride of H.I.V.-negative formerly incarcerated African-American Los Angeles men who have sex with both men and women, the more likely they are to use condoms with men, but not with women. Doctors studying young men who have sex with men concluded that “a successful rectal microbicide product may need to be presented in a range of viscosities to attract a broad client base.” The brains of Crohn’s disease sufferers are highly active in anticipating rectal discomfort. Transient contraction–evoked afferent bursts may be how we know when to urinate.
An increase in the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections in newly sedentary human communities may have led to the social bias for monogamy. The first human to be buried with a personal ornament was an infant who was interred with seashells in KwaZulu-Natal’s Border Cave 74,000 years ago. Subjective experience may have arisen during the Cambrian, in insects. Dinosaurs were in decline for 50 million years before the Chicxulub impact. A set of thirty-eight genes was correlated with the age at which a person first has sex. Tennessee doctors suggested a neuropathic etiology to red scrotum syndrome. Among young children forced to sing onstage and watch their performance played back in front of the audience, those with parents suffering from lifetime social anxiety disorder blushed more. An eleven-year-old girl with mild intellectual disability experienced psychosis after swimming with dolphins. The bedside presence of a parent reduces the opioid-withdrawal symptoms of newborns. Giving children a two-minute warning before taking away their screens makes tantrums worse. Aquilonifer spinosus was found to have towed its juvenile offspring behind it on tethers.
Overfed fetuses become plump adolescents, fetuses whose mothers are active become fit adults, and stronger sucklers become fatter at four months. The number of chubs sold per day positively correlates with the frequency with which deli slicers are cleaned. A thin and incompetent dura may be to blame for frontotemporal brain sagging syndrome. Contact lenses change the microbiome of the eye such that it resembles skin. Stem cells were successfully transplanted from a man’s skin to his eye. Researchers synthesized a bacterium whose genome consists of 473 genes, the fewest in any free-living organism. Chinese engineers created a necklace that listens to what you eat. Worldwide, consumption of fruits and vegetables; rising GDP; and higher temperatures, wind speeds, and atmospheric visibility were all correlated with happiness. The Large Hadron Collider, which can be used as a rain meter, was shut down by a weasel, who was later identified as a marten and died. The largest python ever captured laid a single egg, went “quiet,” and died.
“Concessions and the Cup Holder, 2011” (detail), photographs by Kate Joyce from Bull City Summer: A Season at the Ballpark at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, in North Carolina. Courtesy the artist and Rick Wester Fine Art, New York City
