Physicists at the Linac Coherent Light Source created diamond rain. Researchers identified features that make some women’s faces significantly more attractive from the front than from the side. Software that analyzes the color and tonality of Instagram posts is nearly twice as successful at detecting depression in patients as are G.P.’s. People who hear voices but aren’t mentally ill have a superior ability to detect speechlike sounds hidden in noise. Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are strongly linked to a more acidic brain. Goldfish are able to survive for months without oxygen by converting lactic acid into ethanol. Zebrafish will take risks for hydrocodone. G.P.’s trained at the lowest-ranked medical schools prescribe opioids three times as often as those trained at the highest-ranked school. Blacks suffer from migraines more than whites do, and exhibit a higher ventral posterior thalamic response to high-sugar milkshakes, but both are overprescribed opioids. In thinking racism is a major problem, the gap between Democrats and Republicans is now wider than that between blacks and whites. White Americans report experiencing more gender, age, height/weight, disability, and “other” discrimination than black Americans do. The crew of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley were killed by the shock wave of their own torpedo.

Researchers found that applying testosterone gel to men asked to trade stocks led to asset-price bubbles. Middle managers in the Kansas parole system make small office-policy decisions to feel less disempowered. Tennis players’ grunts rise in pitch during the matches they lose. Cambridge scientists concluded that predicting breathing difficulties in pugs is too complex for the average dog breeder. Delhi residents were abandoning substandard pugs whose medical bills proved too expensive, Agra doctors reported a man’s persistent delusions of a mole run amok in his body, Bombay’s bright blue dogs were found not to be blind, and a pig-nosed purple frog was discovered in the Western Ghats and named for a herpetologist who was killed there in 2014 by a bamboo stalk to the left eye. Turtle-headed sea snakes are shedding their stripes to survive pollution, and as oceans warm, fish are expected to shrink by 20 to 30 percent.

Rectal temperature following exercise is not affected by merino underwear. Melbourne men with male fuck buddies tend to have more rectal chlamydia. Gay porn sites tend to present bottoms as having penises half the size of tops’. Men who remove the entirety of their pubic hair at least eleven times in their lives are particularly prone to genital grooming injuries. Hernia repair outcomes are not affected by the surgeon’s choice of hat. Brazilian nurses reported that a healing touch may benefit rats. Dry climates produce languages with fewer vowels. Monks in Egypt discovered a Hippocratic recipe. Lemons were once a fruit of the Mediterranean elite. Croatian doctors reported a case of infertility due to a husband with a small penis and a wife with a large urethral orifice. A large-scale survey of medical records for Capgras delusion uncovered three patients who believed that it was not other people but themselves who had been replaced by impostors. Attractive plagiarists are judged more harshly. People tend to believe they will be vindicated by history.

Vaters Acker, 2016, a painting by Neo Rauch. © The artist; Artists Rights Society, New York City; Galerie Eigen + ART, Berlin/Leipzig; and David Zwirner, New York City/London. Photograph by Uwe Walter