HARPER’S

FINDINGS

Researchers using the global organology of von Hornbostel and Sachs tracked the extinction of aerophones in South America. A study of Roman tools at Volubilis found that grain millstones were made from vesicular basalt, olive mills from clastic fossiliferous limestone, and dough mixers from nonclastic limestone. The camel reliefs at the Camel Site were dated to the sixth millennium bc. The vast migrations of Bronze Age Eurasian pastoralists were enabled by the drinking of horse milk. Black layers in Antarctic ice cores were traced to Maori burning practices that constitute one of the largest known preindustrial anthropogenic releases of carbon, which caused phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean similar to those that occurred after recent Australian wildfires. 9 Surgeons cured a man who was ejaculating out of his anus. Japanese researchers transported freeze-dried mouse sperm via postcard. Scientists injured mice and then massaged their legs with a robotic device, and found that a ketogenic diet in concert with hypoxia impairs the ability of mice to navigate mazes. Rats on LSD running on a familiar track appear to be half asleep and half awake. Having a sense of purpose makes memories more vivid and coherent, and motivated cognition can be socially contagious. Children begin to understand the nature of false belief between the ages of six and seven. The particular light falling on a pregnant belly can affect the psychiatric state of the fetus as an adult. The United Kingdom’s National Pig Association reported piglet culls amid the fallout from COVID-19 and Brexit. Surface water in eastern North Carolina is more likely to contain both human and swine feces than either in isolation. Human infant feces contains ten times the PET microplastic content of adult feces. The International Marine Litter Research Unit found that two-year-old marine ropes shed 720 fragments of microplastic per meter hauled. Researchers clarified that hermit crabs are excited by and attracted to plastic waste, but not sexually. 9 Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon researchers produced a skillful ten-year cod forecast, ecologists found that the age of a lobster can be determined by its DNA, and paleontologists sought to determine why so few species of mackerel shark are alive today. A tanker arrived in Japan with a dead fin whale on its bow. Llama nanobodies may prevent COVID-19, and a coronavirus found in Laotian bats is much more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than the coronavirus found among horseshoe bats in southern China. In the Namib Desert, three cheetahs who ate the same zebra died of anthrax. Yezo, a novel tick-borne virus discovered in Japan, was blamed for febrile illnesses in two hospital patients. China eliminated malaria. A man buried five thousand years ago on the banks of the Salaca River was determined to be the first known plague victim. The clouds of Venus may be hospitable to life. The nebula Pa30, surrounding Parker’s Star, is likely the Chinese Guest Star supernova observed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1181 ad. Earthshine is diminishing. n

INDEX

Portion of Americans who th the summer of 2020 to be average or above avg.: 1/2 Who considered the summer of 2021 to be bad or the “worst summer ever”: 1/4 Chance that an American planning to move in the next year blames natural disasters or extreme temperatures: 1 in 2 Rank of The Villages, a Florida retirement community, among the fastest-growing U.S. metropolitan areas: 1 Amt. W. Virginia will pay prospective residents to move to the state: $12,000 Rank of New Mexico among states whose residents googled the phrase “is Santa real” most often this year: 1 Average weight, in pounds, of a professional Santa: 245 Number of pounds by which the average weight of an adult male in the United States has increased since 1988: 18.5 Factor by which the rate of body mass index growth for U.S. children has increased during the pandemic: 2 Portion of U.S. parents who have noticed their teens’ mental health problems worsen during the pandemic: 1/2 Portion of teen girls who say Instagram has worsened body image issues: 1/3 Number of TikTok videos removed from the platform last year for violating its “minor safety” policies: 55,401,107 Ratio of school psychologists to K–12 students in the United States: 1 : 1,211 No. by which U.S. college enrollment has declined over the past five years: 1,500,000 Percentage of this decline that can be attributed to male students: 71 Adults worldwide who have experienced increased stress in the past year: 7/10 Who describe themselves as “emotionally exhausted”: 1/2 Percentage of U.S. executives who think their workplace culture has improved since the start of the pandemic: 72 Of U.S. human resources professionals who think so: 21 Adults who have not participated in a video call since the pandemic began: 1/5 Who say digital interactions are just as good as in-person ones: 1/5 % of U.S. adults taking virtual exercise classes who plan to continue as gyms reopen: 86 % of U.S. prisoners released in 2008 who were arrested again in the following decade: 82 Portion of those arrests that were for drug-related offenses: 1/2 Amount, in grams, of marijuana the DEA plans to produce this year: 2,000,000 % increase in the amount of psilocybin the agency plans to produce: 4,900 Minimum no. of L.A. County sheriff’s deputies who have been invited to join intradepartmental gangs: 254 % increase last year in the number of deaths by overdose in the U.S.: 30 Rank of 2020 among years with the highest number of recorded deaths by overdose: 1 % change over the past 20 years in the no. of U.S. estates paying estate taxes: −96 Portion of millionaires who worry about leaving “too much” money to their heirs: 2/3 Avg. amount of outstanding student debt owed by U.S. public school teachers: $56,900 Average salary of a U.S. public school teacher: $65,090 Percentage of U.S. families with health insurance that have medical debt: 16 Median amount of debt held by those families: $2,000 Avg. cost of a fake COVID-19 vaccination card on the messaging app Telegram: $250 Minimum number of COVID-19 vaccine doses that have been made available to U.S. zoo animals: 11,000 Percentage change since 2016 in the wild reindeer population: −13 Estimated year by which the woolly mammoth could become de-extinct: 2026

SOURCES:1,2 YouGov (NYC); 3 Redfin (Seattle); 4 U.S. Census Bureau (Suitland, Md.); 5 Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative (Morgantown, W.Va.); 6 Google (Mountain View, Calif.); 7 National Santa (Babylon, N.Y.); 8 National Center for Health Statistics (Hyattsville, Md.); 9 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta); 10 C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital (Ann Arbor, Mich.); 11 Facebook (Menlo Park, Calif.); 12 TikTok (Culver City, Calif.); 13 National Association of School Psychologists (Bethesda, Md.); 14,15 National Student Clearinghouse (Herndon, Va.); 16,17 Qualtrics (Provo, Utah); 18,19 Society for Human Resource Management (Washington); 20,21 Pew Research Center (Washington); 22 Mindbody (San Luis Obispo, Calif.); 23,24 U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics; 25,26 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (Arlington, Va.); 27 RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, Calif.); 28,29 National Center for Health Statistics; 30 Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (Washington); 31 The Motley Fool (Alexandria, Va.); 32,33 National Education Association (Washington); 34,35 U.S. Census Bureau; 36 Check Point Research (San Carlos, Calif.); 37 Zoetis (Parsippany, N.J.); 38 CARMA Network (Whitehorse, Yukon); 39 Colossal (Dallas).