Miscellany
Humpback whales, which have a sonic range of at least seven octaves, create songs between the length of a modern ballad and a symphony movement, possibly because their attention span is similar to that of humans. Their tunes also contain repeated refrains that form melodic rhymes, suggesting that, like humans, they use these as mnemonic devices.
Miscellany
Engineers at the University of Illinois published a paper in 1960 predicting doomsday would occur November 13, 2026, based on calculations of human-population growth; they hoped “some time, somehow, something will happen that will stop this ever-faster race to self-destruction.” One idea was space travel. “It is only unfortunate,” they wrote, “that no reentry permit to earth can be given to these space trotters.”
Miscellany
At a Johns Hopkins campus hospital in 1920, behavioral psychologists conducted an experiment with a nine-month-old boy known as Little Albert, who was given a white rat to play with. The scientists then made loud noises behind Albert’s head while he played, conditioning in him a fear of other furry animals and objects, previously sources of joy. Albert’s mother, a wet nurse at a nearby hospital, was paid one dollar for her son’s participation.
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