Humans

Wind whips up mayhem

LAS VEGAS — Blustery winds kick up crime as well as debris. In poor parts of Chicago, a week of high winds pushes lots of trash onto the streets, leading to a marked rise in reported assaults the next day, Patrick Sharkey of New York University reported on August 21 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Wind-blown garbage that a community can’t or won’t clean up may represent one sign of social disorder that makes locals more likely to attack one another, at least in the short run, he suggested. Sharkey’s group compared Chicago residents’ estimated amounts of street trash on their blocks from 1995 to 2002 with weather data and block-by-block assault rates. —Bruce Bower

Gen X loves its cell phones

LAS VEGAS — Adults born in the 1960s and early 1970s, dubbed Generation X, have taken cell phones to heart. More than any other generation, Gen Xers say that they can’t live without these electronic devices, Amanda Warr of the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported on August 21 at the American Sociological Association annual meeting. Millennials, members of the generation after Generation X, cite a less-strong attachment to cell phones than their immediate elders. Having grown up without cell phones, Gen Xers appreciate their home and work uses, whereas millennials take cell phones for granted, Warr proposed. Her team analyzed interviews conducted in 2006 with a national sample of respondents. —Bruce Bower

Neandertal stride upgrade
Relatively short-legged Neandertals couldn’t keep up with longer-limbed modern humans on flat ground, but the race evened out and possibly changed leaders in the hilly and mountainous areas favored by Neandertals. Computer simulations run by graduate student Ryan Higgins and biological anthropologist Christopher Ruff, both of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, indicate that Neandertals matched modern humans stride for stride on uphill slopes. Short lower legs like those of Neandertals characterize mountain gazelles and other animals adapted to rugged, steep terrains, the researchers will report in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. —Bruce Bower

Involuntary recall
Personal memories regularly show up uninvited. Spontaneous remembering of past events in one’s life occurs throughout the day, apparently much more often than conscious retrieval of such memories, say Anne Rasmussen and Dorthe Berntsen, both psychologists at Aarhus University in Denmark. Cognitive scientists should stop assuming that people usually summon up autobiographical memories on purpose, the researchers will propose in Consciousness and Cognition. Using day-long memory reports from 48 college students, Rasmussen and Berntsen found that involuntary memories often returned when individuals daydreamed, got bored or let their attention wander. —Bruce Bower

Ancient twins split up
Researchers have for 70 years speculated that two infants nestled together in a single grave at a Native American site in Indiana were twins, perhaps conjoined. These babies, members of a 1,000- to 600-year-old society, were neither twins nor conjoined, say anthropologist Charla Marshall of Indiana University Bloomington and her colleagues. Mitochondrial DNA extracted from their bones shows that the children had different mothers, the scientists report in the September American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Skeletal analyses find no signs of conjoined body parts. Nuclear DNA has yet to be isolated to test the possibility that these infants had the same father. —Bruce Bower