This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:
- Wins for kids — Spectator sports are good for children – good for creating children, that is – according to data in a study by Gwinyai Masukume at University College Dublin, Ireland, and his colleagues…. “With a few exceptions,” say the researchers, these popular contests “were associated with increases in the number of babies born and/or in the birth sex ratio 9(±1) months following notable team wins and/or hosting the tournament”. Sports events on this level seem to work that way for winners – but not for losers, says the study….
- Celebratory sex — That spectator-sports study begins with a seductive sentence: “Major sporting tournaments may be associated with increased birth rates 9 months afterwards, possibly due to celebratory sex.” Not many researchers focus on the topic of celebratory sex. But four scholars at the University of South Dakota did, in a 2017 paper called “Sexual behavior in parked cars reported by Midwestern college mehttps://outlook.office.com/mail/feedback@newscientist.com/n and women“….
- Timeliness of time — The eternal question “What is time?” has staggered doubly to centre stage – first in a Finnish report about Russian time zones, second in a shifty action by the nation of Kazakhstan…. Independently, the government of Kazakhstan added clarification, wonder and, maybe, confusion to the general timely mix. On 1 March, Kazakhstan rendered its two time zones down into a solitary, nationwide time zone….
- Unread, un-existent — How many research studies that nobody had read… eventually just disappeared? And how many studies that have disappeared… had never been read by anybody, even before disappearing? Rough answers to both questions – they are not quite the same question! – now exist…. Meho wrote: “It is a sobering fact that some 90% of papers that have been published in academic journals are never cited. Indeed, as many as 50% of papers are never read by anyone other than their authors, referees and journal editors.” …