HARPER’S

FINDINGS

The Justinianic Plague may have had a more profound impact on Byzantine society than recent research has posited, as evidenced by the devaluation of currency and attempts to impose wage and price controls amid labor shortages and what the emperor described as the “encircling presence of death.” Liang zhu culture was destroyed by climate change, volcanic eruptions made Chinese dynasties of the past two thousand years likelier to collapse, and the end-Permian mass extinction may have been caused by southern Chinese volcanism in addition to the eruptions of the Siberian Traps, which lowered global temperatures by several degrees. Japonic, Koreanic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Turkic languages were traced to Neolithic millet farmers who lived near the West Liao River. Archaeologists announced the discovery, at the Armenian archaeological site of Artashat-Artaxata, of the easternmost Roman aqueduct. Astronomers reported the presence of a planet in the Hercules constellation with a year that lasts sixteen hours and the surface temperature of a small star. Interplanetary dust may have provided the phosphorus necessary for life on Earth. Researchers summarized heavy-metal poisonings in Missouri and Rhode Island caused by luster dust. “Not all glitters,” they warned, “are created equal.”

Dutch and Japanese speakers can tell whether someone is laughing in Dutch or Japanese. Half of children can appreciate humor by the time they are two months old, and half can produce humor by eleven months. Faces can be identified as those of adults from noses and eyebrows, and as those of children from eyes and jawlines. Mandatory masking improves performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test. Neck musculature predicts fighting success among men, and was found to be the most significant sexually dimorphic characteristic. DC superheroes exhibit the upper-body proportions of champion male bodybuilders, whereas Marvel superheroes exceed them, and both DC and Marvel superheroines have smaller waist-to-hip ratios than popular pornographic actresses. Women are likelier than men to seek out aggression in pornography, greater pornography consumption among straight people predicts support for gay marriage, arranged marriages may counter natural selection, and the psychological profiles of Flemish divorcées’ new husbands suggest that the former learned from their mistakes and suffered from decreased value in the marriage market. A study of posts on a relationship forum indicated that breakups cause more emotional pain to men than women. Men are better than women at tuning into their hearts, but no differences were observed for gastric self-perception.

Americans are less distressed by the certainty of death than by the possibility of toothache. The personality trait most closely associated with a belief in astrology is narcissism. Researchers presented a framework for understanding malevolent creativity. Agreeable individuals are likelier to comply with social distancing and to contract COVID-19. Rare cases of in utero COVID-19 infection may occur if the fetus swallows amniotic fluid. Singing male adults produce high quantities of respiratory aerosols. Zoologists concluded that a single species of frog has true teeth in its lower jaw, and that it is probably extinct. “These traits,” said the lead author, “don’t exist anywhere else in the frog tree of life.” Forest fires were lowering human birth weights, zoo chimpanzees in Kyoto enjoy virtual forests, and the chimpanzees of the Bossou community are formal in their greetings but unceremonious in their leave-taking.

INDEX

% of Republicans and Democrats, respectively, who got a flu shot in 2019−20: 53, 56 Who say they have gotten or are very likely to get a flu shot this season: 44, 68 % increase in U.S. sales of cigarettes in 2020: 0.4 Year in which U.S. cigarette sales last increased: 2000 Portion of Americans aged 18 to 25 who say their alcohol use has increased during the pandemic: 1/5 Who say their drug use has increased: 1/5 Portion of Americans who say that drug use is a source of trouble for their family: 1/3 Avg. number of times people switch between screens or tabs per day: 566 Avg. number of minutes it takes to get back on task after checking a cell phone notification: 25 % increase in U.S. workers who have been involved in a workplace relationship since the start of the pandemic: 26 % of adults with shared finances who have lied to their partners about money: 39 % by which fewer Americans planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day last year than the year before: 5 % change since 2017 of married people who say their spouse makes life meaningful: −58 Estimated number of U.S. households that acquired a cat or dog during the pandemic: 23,000,000 Factor by which the number of dog training services offered via Zoom increased during the pandemic: 2 % by which more women than men report experience burnout often or almost always: 20 No. of years by which the avg. retirement age is lower in China than in the United States: 3 Minimum number of U.S. employee walkouts since the start of the pandemic: 1,670 % increase since August in Google searches for “how to send a resignation email”: 3,450 % by which bonuses for U.S. investment bankers and traders were projected to increase last year: 20 Portion of active-duty U.S. military families that face food insecurity: 1/6 Min. number of prison workers who’ve been arrested or sentenced since 2019: 100 Avg. number of mistreatment and neglect reports filed with New York City child-welfare caseworkers per week: 1,054 Min. number of eviction cases filed in NYC since the start of the pandemic: 77,346 % increase in rat sightings in New York City last year: 52 Min. number of birds killed each year in NYC by collisions with glass windows: 90,000 Minimum number of whales killed by collisions with ships each year: 750 Factor by which the weight of whales killed in the twentieth century exceeds that of all wild mammals today: 2 Min. tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste deposited in the ocean: 25,000 % of material received by U.S. recycling centers that is nonrecyclable: 22 Factor by which U.S. online grocery sales have increased since the start of the pandemic: 6 % of New York City food delivery workers who have had their bikes stolen: 54 Portion of college grads projected to need at least 20 years to recoup tuition costs: 1/4 Portion of those graduates who will likely never recoup the total: 3/5 % by which philosophy majors are more likely than psychology majors to describe themselves as “brilliant”: 9 Portion of U.S. adults who say they have questioned the meaning of life in the past year: 1/4 Who say that suffering is mostly a consequence of one’s own actions: 7/10 Who believe in heaven: 3/4 Portion of Americans with graduate degrees who believe in ghosts: 1/3

SOURCES: 1 AP–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (Chicago); 2 Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index (NYC); 3,4 Federal Trade Commission (Washington); 5,6 Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (Rockville, Md.); 7 Gallup (Washington); 8,9 Gloria Mark, University of California, Irvine; 10 Society for Human Resource Management (Alexandria, Va.); 11 National Endowment for Financial Education (Denver); 12 National Retail Federation (Washington); 13 Pew Research Center (Washington); 14 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NYC); 15 Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (NYC); 16 McKinsey & Company (NYC) and LeanIn.org (Palo Alto, Calif.); 17 Society of Actuaries Research Institute (Schaumburg, Ill.) and Matthew S. Rutledge, Boston College; 18 Payday Report (Pittsburgh); 19 Google (Mountain View, Calif.); 20 Johnson Associates (NYC); 21 Military Family Advisory Network (Shawnee, Kan.); 22 Associated Press (NYC); 23 NYC Administration for Children’s Services; 24 Eviction Lab at Princeton University (N.J.); 25 NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; 26 NYC Audubon; 27 Great Whale Conservancy (Burnsville, N.C.); 28 Matthew S. Savoca, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University (Pacific Grove, Calif.); 29 Yanxu Zhang, Nanjing University (China); 30 Republic Services (Phoenix); 31 Coresight Research (NYC); 32 The Worker Institute, Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.); 33,34 Third Way (Washington); 35 Heather Maranges, Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, N.C.); 36–38 Pew Research Center; 39 Gradient Metrics (NYC)