Riding Disney World’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad helps people pass kidney stones, and approximately 100 million opioid pills prescribed each year for wisdom-tooth extraction in the United States are not used by the intended patients. Opioid addicts consider baby faces cute only after being given opioid antagonists. The sight of infant tears is more stimulating to childless women than the sight of adult tears. Twenty-one percent of straight American men view gay porn, and 55 percent of gay American men view straight porn. Engineers tested a new pornography detector that employs Bags of Visual Words. The Ugly Friend Effect was verified. The illusion of possessing a fat body triggers dissatisfaction activity in the insula. Psychological analysis revealed that typical themes in writing about vaginal steam treatments include “the naturally deteriorating, dirty female body” and “vaginal steaming for life optimization.” Great apes understand that others can have false beliefs. On a scale of 0 to 8, humans rate the minds of dogs 7.04, the minds of chickens 4.23, and the minds of shrimps 1.41. Mammals with longer yawns have bigger brains. The sensation of boredom is mild in negative valence and low in arousal. Studies of the effect of soothing or stressful stimuli on the eye wrinkles of horses remained inconclusive.
Cocaine accumulates in the eyes of zebrafish, low consumption of fish oil may contribute to depression among returning U.S. soldiers, and a Taiwanese soldier on sentry duty was described as suffering from sleep-masturbation. China’s State Food and Drug Administration announced that 80 percent of drug-trial data it receives is fraudulent. Machiavellian Dutch scientists admit to higher levels of research misbehavior, but narcissistic and psychopathic ones do not. Dutch criminals tend to intermarry. Californians living in proximity to murders commit fewer suicides. Rapes occur more often in U.S. counties with fewer men. Lionesses in Botswana have grown manes and started roaring and mounting other females. Social media was fueling the Gulf States’ desire for pet cheetahs. Scientists found a new species of neotropical ant by inducing a little devil frog to vomit. Cinnamon cools the stomachs of pigs by up to 3.6º F. An Australian woman’s gastric hair ball failed to dissolve after doctors prescribed a three-day course of Coca-Cola. Warming, acidifying oceans will increase the claw size of male Cymadusa pemptos, making them more attractive to females and contributing to a twenty-fold population increase. Living on the tails of sea turtles turns Columbus crabs monogamous. Male dark fishing spiders are not killed by females during copulation but instead die spontaneously. A virus was found to have stolen the gene for black-widow venom.
Sleep paralysis in southeast Brazil manifests as a long-nailed crone who tramples sleepers with full bellies. The robot security force at a Palo Alto mall remained suspended while one of its officers was under investigation for trampling a toddler outside an Armani Exchange. A study of California and U.K. police found that body cameras led to a 93 percent reduction in civilian complaints, possibly because of a contagion of accountability. Black children in Alabama and Mississippi and disabled children across the Southeast are 50 percent likelier to receive corporal punishment in school. After imagining losing a fight, men prefer allies who look dominant and masculine, while women prefer allies who look comforting. A survey of sixty-three countries found Ecuador to be the most empathetic and Lithuania to be the least. Americans’ greatest fear is political corruption. Pigeon flocks replace leaders who have lost their sense of direction. Analysis of popular music revealed 2011 as the year of peak YOLO.
Photograms by Ellen Carey from the series Struck by Light: Dings & Shadows. Carey’s work is currently on view at the George Eastman Museum, in Rochester, New York. Courtesy the artist; Jayne H. Baum Gallery, New York City; and M+B Gallery, Los Angeles
