Culling the December Index and Findings

I've had a subscription to Harper's Magazine for a couple of decades. I started reading it when I began college if I remember correctly.

Two continuing features in the magazine I always look forward to are "Harper's Index," which is at the start of the magazine, and the "Findings" page that closes each issue. Most people are familiar with the Index, but I'm pretty sure the "Findings" page isn't as old. It provides an interesting and often bizarre collection of published research that's been disseminated recently.

I thought I'd pass along a culling from both features in the December issue that I find particularly rich.

From Harper's Index:

• Portion of income growth since the end of the recession that has gone to corporate profits: 9/10
• Minimum number of pigs stolen in Minnesota this September: 744
• Percentage by which the average contracted project costs the government more than the equivalent government-run project: 83
• Date on which Governor Rick Scott said that Florida doesn't need "more anthropologists": 10/10/2011
• Date on which Scott's daughter received her anthropology degree: 1/11/2008
• Chance that an American between 18 and 24 has read a book in the past year that wasn't required for school or work: 1 in 2
• Rank of non-denominational Christianity among the fastest-growing religions in America during the past two decades: 2
• Rank of "none": 1
• Percentage of the vote received by the Pirate Party in Berlin's September municipal elections: 8.9
• Number of sex dolls distributed to SS soldiers by Heinrich Himmler, according to a book released this September: 50

From "Findings":

• "Columbus may have caused the Little Ice Age." 
• "Bolder bluegill sunfish are likelier to be caught in open water, whereas shy ones are caught near the rocks."
• "Easily embarrassed humans, though not the morbidly ashamed, are seen as more trustworthy and are more often monogamous." 
• "Canadian psychologists  concluded that 'moral disengagemnt' leads to workplace rumor-mongering and collegial sabotage."
• "Psychopathic Canadian murderers, when describing their crimes, more frequently use conjunctions and employ the past tense than do their non-psychopathic counterparts." 
• "The nose smells what it expects." 
• "Extramarital affairs increase a man's risk of a broken penis."