harper’s FINDINGS

Atmospheric warming is shrinking the diurnal temperature range, the septic systems of Nags Head are failing as sea levels rise, and PFAS are damaging the immune systems of Cape Fear alligators. Reduced flow from the Colorado River is causing the Salton Sea to dry into toxic dust. Microbes on Mars may have degraded the planet’s atmosphere by overproducing greenhouse gases. The Late Miocene Cooling Event, previously attributed to carbon dioxide drawdown from Himalayan silicate weathering, may have been caused in large part by ash from Andean volcanism. Smallscale tests are under way to model the installation of a 169-mile-wide seaweed farm in the South Atlantic Gyre, and scientists were hopeful that metal-organic frameworks will allow targeted carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and may aid human colonization of other planets. 3D printed bricks of lunar regolith were deemed potentially viable for construction on the moon. Precession was observed for the first time among a pair of binary black holes. Tree ring records indicate that a Miyake Event has about a 1 percent chance of occurring in the next decade, though it is unclear whether it would destroy human civilization. Climate change may make it difficult for Shias to commemorate the martyrdom of Ali but will increase opportunities for seeing rainbows.

9

The Journal of Moral Education found that adults prefer children’s diplomatic lies to their blunt honesty. A survey of eighteen countries found that children who play around rivers, lakes, and seas have better mental health as adults. Newborns who have suffered left-hemisphere strokes shift sentence processing to the right hemisphere. Previously deployed U.S. service members retain the dust of the Afghan and Iraqi deserts. Targeted memory reactivation with the C69 piano chord reduces the incidence of non-traumatic nightmares and increases the joyousness of dreams. Three hundred and eight years after they were first observed, phantom violin notes were proven to be real, and can be produced more powerfully by superior violins. Injecting healthy genes into the eyes of adults with a form of congenital blindness restored their night vision. A team from the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules discovered the pheromone that makes grass puffer fish spawn on beaches under the moonlight. Hypoactive sexual desire in women may be mitigated by kisspeptin. Researchers cautioned that the “apparently more liberated sexual behavior” reported by redheaded women “could be the consequence of potential mates’ frequent attempts to have sex with them.” Erect-crested penguins reject their first eggs. Migratory birds lured by light pollution are then poisoned by air pollution.

9

Britons, among whom non-padded coats have the longest consumer lifespan of any garment, are dying faster than expected. A switch to year-round daylight saving time would result in 36,550 fewer U.S. deer deaths each year. Colorado scientists who x-rayed eleven swarms of bees discovered complex and beneficial clustering patterns, and a Massachusetts woman was arrested for wielding a swarm of bees to attack police officers on Memery Lane. Eastern fence lizards may improve their resistance to fire ant stings by eating fire ants. The horns of all five species of rhino have been getting smaller over the past century. When an aye-aye picks its nose, its finger travels through the sinus, into the throat, and into the mouth. “It was like—where is it going?” said the researcher of the behavior. “Is it inserting it into its brain?” Mice do not vomit, but they do retch. Blue fibers found amid the dental calculus of sacrificial victims in a Belizean cave may have been Mayan death gags. n

Index

Portion of Japanese Americans who support the Democratic Party: 2/3

Of Vietnamese Americans who do: 1/3

Portion of Catholic Latinos in the Northeast who support the Democratic Party: 9/10

Of Protestant Latinos in the South who do: 1/2

Percentage of Democrats who say we should support Ukraine in the war against Russia for “as long as it takes”: 68

Of Republicans who do: 50

Minimum number of fake Twitter accounts operated by the U.S. military that have been suspended since 2012: 170

Percentage of those accounts that had fewer than one thousand followers: 81

Chances that a registered voter thinks mainstream media is a “major threat” to democracy: 3 in 5

That a Trump voter does: 9 in 10

Portion of working parents who say their pay has not kept pace with inflation: 7/10

Of working adults who say they have moved to an area with a lower cost of living to cut expenses: 1/5

Portion of Europeans who are cutting back on essentials like food and heat to save money: 3/5

Who are relying on savings or loans to pay their bills: 1/3

Number of hours by which the amount of work per month needed to afford the typical U.S. rent has risen in the past two years: 8

Percentage of workers who have looked for a second job because of inflation: 38 Who plan to do so: 14

Percentage increase since 2019 in Google searches for plausible reasons to skip work: 824

In the number of bird watchers in the United States: 16 In the number of pickleball players: 39

Percentage by which men are more likely than women to sexually harass a boss of the opposite sex: 44 By which men are more likely than women to say they use sex appeal to get what they want in the workplace: 10

Percentage increase since 2019 in the number of employer reviews on Glassdoor that cite “boundaries”: 30

Portion of those reviews that are negative: 3/4

Portion of Americans who say they have been bullied at work: 1/3 Of tech workers who say so: 4/5

Percentage increase since 2010 in the number of computer science bachelor’s degrees awarded to U.S. undergraduates: 144

Average number of minutes per workday that programmers spend writing code: 52

Percentage of code generated last year that the average programmer copied and pasted from another source: 14

Portion of U.S. eighth graders who are proficient or above in math: 26

Percentage by which that represents a decrease since 2019: 24

Portion of Americans who say their brains “shut down” when they encounter any form of data: 3/10

Minimum percentage of Americans who say they’ve had a paranormal experience: 67 Who say this experience involved “smelling an unexplained odor”: 30

Who say they have the ability to psychically sense others’ emotions or auras: 24

Percentage of U.S. homeowners who believe their homes are haunted: 49

Of Gen Z homeowners who believe this: 65

Number of states in which sellers must respond truthfully if asked whether a murder has occurred in a home: 9

If asked whether a home is haunted: 1

SOURCES: 1,2 AAPI Data (Riverside, Calif.); 3,4 Pew Research Center (Washington); 5,6 Chicago Council on Global Affairs; 7,8 Graphika (NYC); 9,10 Siena College Research Institute (Loudonville, N.Y.); 11,12 Qualtrics (Provo, Utah); 13,14 IRI (Bracknell, England); 15 Zillow (Seattle); 16,17 Qualtrics; 18 Frank Recruitment Group (NYC); 19,20 Sports & Fitness Industry Association (Silver Spring, Md.); 21,22 Jessica A. Kennedy, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.); 23,24 Glassdoor (San Francisco); 25,26 Workplace Bullying Institute (Clarkston, Wash.); 27 National Center for Education Statistics (Washington); 28,29 Software.com (NYC); 30,31 National Assessment of Educational Progress (Washington); 32 OnePoll (Bristol, England); 33–35 YouGov (NYC); 36,37 Vivint (Provo, Utah); 38,39 Zillow.