Outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease were linked to gyms in Florida and Australia; strep infection was noted in a newborn whose mother ate dried placenta while breastfeeding; an absence of grandparents was making Chinese migrant children less obese; Israeli sows were suffering from diarrhea, lethargy, coughing, fetus mummification, miscarriage, and neonatal death; and Manitoban piglets were succumbing to epidemic diarrhea. Canadian lab macaques contracted chronic wasting disease after being fed infected deer. A white-tailed deer was caught chewing on a human corpse. A Swedish woman who was presumed to have been murdered with a riding lawn mower was found to have been mauled by moose. A snake was seen regurgitating another snake, a great horned owl was seen swimming in a lake, a mole was found inside a bass, and it remained unclear why bonnethead sharks eat grass.
Trustworthy, addictive, unkind, educated middle-aged women are especially susceptible to romance scams. People who are snubbed by people checking their phones often turn to their own phones for affirmation. Canadian pediatricians reported a case of selfie epilepsy. In India, where plastic surgeons recommended the use of selfie sticks in the operating room, selfie deaths were found to be more numerous than anywhere else on earth. Polish doctors reported that the victim of a fatal caffeine overdose had a blood caffeine concentration equivalent to brewed coffee. California poison control centers reported a median age of eleven years among superglue victims, to whom they occasionally prescribe topical peanut butter. Pathologists discussed the difficulty of evaluating self-inflicted mercurialism. Among adult Israelis, womanhood, PTSD, and poverty were found to predict Islamic State anxiety. The lies of black Africans exhibit an increase in first-person and perceptual statements, whereas the lies of white Europeans exhibit a reduction. Japanese subjects can be trained to unconsciously improve their ability to differentiate English r and l sounds. Schizophrenics exhibit attenuated activation in the right posterior superior temporal gyrus during irresolvable incongruity processing of nonsensical puns. German scientists found in common a sensation of visual overload among five subjects who reported a powerful desire to be blind. In evaluating a new Body Odor Disgust Scale, researchers found that silent smelly farts are the body odor for which disgust differs most widely depending on whether the odor is one’s own or a stranger’s.
Gut instinct is trusted more and self-reflection occurs less in men with high testosterone levels. Men with low resting heart rates are much likelier to be stalkers. The B.M.I. of American men rises following marriage and falls following divorce. Advanced paternal age contributes to geekiness in male children. Terminally ill men with heart failure relax their standards for facial beauty. Fetuses prefer facelike dot patterns. People’s vocal pitch rises when speaking to interlocutors of high status. Clinicians were found to benefit from role-playing with a transgender actress who expressed a desire to remove her testicles. Cuttlefish sometimes pretend to be crabs. Unborn fiddler rays are traumatized by their mothers’ capture. It is possible, if a snail has a good memory and a bad memory stored on a single neuron, to erase just the bad one.
Photographs from Los Angeles by Anthony Hernandez, whose monograph Forever was published in April by MACK. Courtesy the artist and MACK
