Last Supper, a tapestry inspired by a photograph of a Monsanto Chemical Company retirement dinner in 1952, by Kirsten Stolle © The artist. Courtesy the artist and Tracey Morgan Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina
Five hundred and one tropical cyclones that made landfall in the contiguous United States between 1930 and 2015 were found to have caused between 3.2 and 5.1 percent of all deaths and contributed to an estimated 25 percent of all U.S. infant deaths. The number of U.S. children born with congenital anomalies rose by a tenth after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Tibetan women in the Upper Mustang who had the most live births were found to have evolved higher oxygen saturation without an increase in blood viscosity, Finnish women who fear childbirth were found to wean their babies earlier, and COVID-19 restrictions were found to have encouraged French mothers to breastfeed for longer. Parmesan researchers found that “benevolently sexist” adults are less likely to own “clit-oriented” sex toys. Transient clitoromegaly and popliteal pterygium syndrome were observed in an extreme preterm twin girl. Solitary chicks emit fewer anxious peeps if given a mirror for company. Male white-browed sparrow-weaver nestlings of the Kalahari help their parents less than their sisters do.
Bottlenose dolphins, who were found to inhale and exhale microplastics, respond to a smile with a smile one third of the time. Marine biologists described the Red Sea’s grumpy dwarfgoby, and a team of 127 coleopterists described 153 new species of beetles from China. Researchers expressed excitement at their discovery of new cell types in the fruit fly uterus and recommended further research into the oxidative-damage variation in banded mongoose ejaculate. Of five tested forage sources, rye silage resulted in the greatest back-fat thickness among Hanwoo steers. Researchers examining the teeth of the Tsavo man-eating lions of the late 1890s found impacted human hair as well as evidence of poor dental hygiene and injuries that may have driven the lions to hunt humans. New Zealand stone flies are evolving away from mimicking poisonous insects because deforestation has left them nothing to mimic. A primatologist, a mammalogist, and a linguist concluded that the jerky, rhythmic dance of sexually mature female black crested gibbons is innate rather than culturally transmitted.
Bay Area researchers debuted a Narcissism Interview Scale for Employment; men concerned with manliness are less likely to forgive co-workers who miss meetings; and more than half of U.S. civilians tasked with evaluating a bombing target endorsed killing unidentified bystanders. Archaeologists identified the skeleton recovered from the Sverresborg Castle’s well in 1938 as the man described in the Sverris Saga as having been thrown into the well in 1197. Twelve Nabataean skeletons, including one clutching a ceramic chalice, were unearthed under the Treasury at Petra. Fujianese doctors negatively aspirated a mercury thermometer out of a man’s urethra. Male sex workers in large U.S. cities reported a tendency to charge more money for unusual requests and for sex with unattractive men. Spanking by Japanese mothers declines as fathers take on more housework and childcare. Germans under thirty experience more climate distress and have rough sex.
