On the other hand
It is maybe the most politically insightful psychology study published in the past 60 years. And it is maybe not.
The study in question is 鈥溾��.
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Its author, Stewart J. H. McCann, professor emeritus of psychology at Cape Breton University, Canada, pored over data about US (rather than Canadian) voters during the years 1964 to 2016. He found, he says, a striking pattern: 鈥�.鈥�
What does this mean? McCann distils the answer into a 46-word sentence that grows more meaningful each dozen times you read it. Or less meaningful.
That sentence is: 鈥淚t is speculated that such relations are grounded in hypothesized but poorly understood genetic links between handedness, personality, and political beliefs and attitudes, and, that a foundational genetic predisposition to left-handedness in a population may have much greater impact on correlates than overt levels of left-handedness.鈥�
Feedback notes that in those 46 words, and in the entire paper, much is left to the imagination.
In solitary splendour
One鈥檚 personality can shine forth when one is alone rather than with companions.
That is the big reveal in a study called 鈥溾��.
In particular, say the researchers at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the University of Edinburgh, UK: 鈥淰ocalisations were rarely performed when other sheep were present, suggesting that this behaviour is a response to being alone.鈥�
When nothing is good
James Hodges writes: 鈥淚n response to your segment on doctors waiting for patients to get better by themselves: it is absolutely totally a part of our job.
鈥淚 am a paediatrician. We take doing nothing very seriously. 鈥楥at-like observation and masterful inactivity鈥� is a firmly held mantra in our world. We often admit patients for viral illnesses for which there is no treatment. We watch, we support, and the child gets better.
鈥淭here are times when doing nothing is positively the best treatment. When you have an unstable child who is pretty sick they will deteriorate if they get agitated. We will often prescribe 鈥榤inimal handling鈥�, which is an assertive way of saying leave the kid alone. Let them sleep, hopefully in with a parent, and don鈥檛 bother them too much. Definitely don鈥檛 go forcing needles or medicines on them. Experienced paediatric nurses are absolutely brilliant at this (very much art of medicine).
鈥淭his is not just in acutely unwell children. Colicky babies will not become colicky adolescents (mostly). There are an absolute myriad of paediatric conditions we don鈥檛 treat 鈥� idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura is a great example. There is plenty where we do treat, but the evidence that we change anything with that is pretty minimal.
鈥淐hildren鈥檚 physiology is truly awesome and I often feel like a passenger, watching them fix themselves, and occasionally adding some reassurance and distraction. It鈥檚 a pretty great job.鈥�
(Feedback notes that 鈥� this letter being an exception 鈥� nearly all the responses we have received about this question have been from doctors who are retired.)
As fresh as onions
Dimple Devi and her colleagues have devised a way to use onions to prolong the freshness of milk.
The researchers, based at the Central Institute of Technology Kokrajhar, India, discuss it in a report called 鈥溾��, published in the journal Food and Humanity. If the milk goes bad, the onionified packaging film changes from light pink to colourless to brown.
Utilised this way, the researchers say, onion does almost no end of good things: 鈥淭he addition of onion peel extract in the biopolymers reduced moisture content, water solubility, swelling index, and transparency, and significantly increased antioxidant activity, and total phenolic content.鈥� It also 鈥渦tilized a common and abundantly generated agricultural / food processing waste鈥�.
The report doesn鈥檛 address the question of how consumers might react to the idea of milk protected by 鈥� though not flavoured with! 鈥� onion.
Carry on carrying
Perusing Feedback鈥檚 growing list of trivial superpowers, Ken Taylor poses a question about his own ability: 鈥淗ere鈥檚 a trivial superpower I only just realised I had鈥� the ability to carry lots of glass containers. As a teenager, I delivered milk and could manage six full pint bottles of milk and 10 empties. As an adult, I could impress friends by carrying four full pints of beer (the ones without handles) by splaying my fingers wide and curling them round the rims. Looks very cool, unless you drop them. Does this rate as a superpower? Your call.鈥�
Ken鈥檚 calm persistence in carrying containers exemplifies the tradition of 鈥渃arry on鈥�.
Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and聽co-founded聽the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is聽.
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