The new beer/violence analysis was fairly straightforward. Matthews, Shepherd, and Sivarajasingham looked up sets of numbers for each region in England and Wales – assault rates reported in hospital emergency departments, the local price of beer, the local unemployment rate, and other likely suspects. Then they compared region against region.
Their report concludes that ‘the regional distribution of the incidence of violent injury is related to the regional distribution of the price of beer’. It predicts, quite specifically, that a one percent increase in the cost of beer would result in five thousand fewer cases of assault every year. With the UK-wide average price of a pint standing at about £2.80 ($4.40), a penny-a-pint action might thus be expected to prevent about 1800 assaults in the coming year.
But the study supplies the logic for an intriguing, alternative method by which the government’s treasurer might reduce the number of assaults: prevent young people from having jobs. As the researchers explain it, ‘there is a strong negative relationship between youth unemployment and violence related injury. The higher is unemployment, the lower is youth disposable income, and the lower the consumption of alcohol and consequently the lower the incidence of violent injury.’
Matthews, Kent, Jonathan Shepherd, and Vaseekaran Sivarajasingham (2006). ‘Violence-Related Injury and the Price of Beer in England and Wales.’ Injury 37 (5): 388-94.
Bernstein, S. L., W. P. Rennie, and K. Alagappan (1994). ‘Impact of Yankee Stadium Bat Day on Blunt Trauma in Northern New York City.’ Annals of Emergency Medicine 23 (3): 555–59.
Something Foul in the Air
Automated breath analysis, the policeman’s best tool for identifying drunk drivers, has a new use. Three Greek chemists tell all in a report called ‘Analysis of Expired Air of Fasting Male Monks at Mount Athos’. Published in a magazine few police officers ever read – the Journal of Chromatography B – the study describes a new reason to appreciate monks. From a scientist’s point of view, fasting monks are a reasonable substitute for ‘entrapped people under the ruins of a collapsed building after an earthquake’.
The report explains: ‘Survivors are often trapped in voids of ruins, usually dehydrated and starved ... Expired air volatile organic compounds, along with volatiles of other biological fluids (blood, urine and sweat), might give indications of human life or loss. To study expired air under similar situations one needs to find volunteers for providing breath samples. However, identification of a group of volunteers undergoing starvation for 72 hours (crucial time for search and rescue operations) for experimentation purposes may be difficult to find.’
Difficult, yes. But not impossible. Thus: monks. The monks at the Great and Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi, on the Athos peninsula in the Aegean Sea, are famous for fasting. For three days prior to Easter, they ingest neither food nor water.
Seven monks made their breath available to the scientists. These monks preceded their fast with a Sunday evening meal of fish, salad, and wine. They ended it with a special hot soup, called housafi, consisting of plums, figs, grapes, oranges, and other fruits. But before slurping the soup, they did some heavy breathing into plastic collection bags.
Starved-monk breath is a treasure, so it was handled with care. The scientists pumped it from the collection bags into special tubes. They then fed the tubes into a gas chromatograph, an instrument that separated the breath into its constituent parts.
Here, in case you need to know, are the twenty-nine most frequent volatile substances in the breath of the Mount Athos monks after three days of starvation (but before they had their first taste of fruit soup): Acetone; phenol; di-limonene; 2-pentanone; isoprene; acetaldehyde; n-octyl acetate; dichloromethane; octane; hexane, 3-methyl; hexane, 2-methyl; heptane; 2-beta-pinene; heptane, 2-methyl; heptane, 4-methyl; heptane, 3-methyl; carbonic acid, dimethyl ester; heptane, 2,4-dimethyl; ethanone, 1-phenyl; benzene, 1,2,3-trimethyl; cyclohexane, methyl; cyclohexanone; benzene, (1-methylethenyl); toluene; nonane; 1-hexanol, 2-ethyl; 2-butanone; cyclohexane, 1,4-dimethyl; and benzene, 1,2-dimethyl.
The acetone dominated everything else. The report notes, rather dryly, that ‘the odour of acetone was detectable by smell in the expired air of the monks’. The odour is familiar to many people who have never fasted: acetone is nail polish remover. And it’s one of the substances a human body produces when it burns fat reserves rather than food.
Some scientists appreciate the fasting monks of Mount Athos not just for their pungent breath. That’s a whole other story. You can read all about it in a 1994 report called ‘An Epidemiological Study of Headache Among the Monks of Athos (Greece)’.
Statheropoulos, M., A. Agapiou, and A. Georgiadou (2006). ‘Analysis of Expired Air of Fasting Male Monks at Mount Athos.’ Journal of Chromatography B 832: 274–79.
Mitsikostas, D. D., A. Thomas, S. Gatzonis, A. Ilias, and C. Papageorgiou. (1994). ‘An Epidemiological Study of Headache Among the Monks of Athos (Greece).’ Headache 34 (9): 539–41.
T Is for Temptation
‘The purpose of this study was to examine meanings assigned by observers to an adolescent wearing an alcohol promotional T-shirt.’ So begins a study published in the September 2004 issue of the Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal.
Scholars had never tackled this exact question. Now they have.
These particular scholars, Jane E. Workman, Naomi E. Arseneau, and Chandra J. Ewell, are based at Southern Illinois University. The details of their discovery are numerous. Unlike many in their trade, Workman, Arseneau, and Ewell are good at baking a morass of data down into a concise, clear description. Here is their take: ‘Regardless of gender, the adolescent wearing an alcohol T-shirt [rather than a plain T-shirt] was rated as less honest, less independent, less responsible, less feminine, less reliable, less religious, less likely to be on time, less likely to do well in school, more likely to smoke, more likely to be a party animal, more likely to drink, more likely to be a risk taker, and more likely to use profanity.’
The researchers do not say that alcohol T-shirt wearers are less honest or less abstemious or less anything else than other teens. The study, they insist, merely ‘provides an important piece of evidence regarding perceptions associated with alcohol promotional T-shirts’.
Ah, but they do see danger. Wearing the wrong kind of shirt ‘might lead peers to form impressions of the wearer as independent, autonomous, sociable, irresponsible, and a risk taker’. And that ‘might lead to expanded opportunities and pressures for adolescents to engage in risky behaviors’. In other words, when you wear the shirt, you tempt others to tempt you onto the road to ruin.
Workman, Arseneau, and Ewell of course did not claim that their entire theory is pristinely original. They stand, metaphorically, on the shoulders of T-shirt giants. Those giants are Donna K. Darden and Steven K. Worden, whose 1991 report ‘Identity Announcement in Mass Society: The T-Shirt’, proclaimed a theory explaining how T-shirts can function as symbols. It was published to mild acclaim in the journal Sociological Spectrum.
Worden and Darden, by the way, are known for more than just their T-shirt work. They are, in some ways, the first couple (academically speaking) of cock-fighting. Their report ‘Knives and Gaffs: Definitions in the Deviant World of Cockfighting’ was published quietly in 1992, in the journal Deviant Behavior. Eight years later it was republished as a chapter in the surprisingly dull book Deviance and Deviants: An Anthology. According to the book’s publisher: ‘Worden and Darden argue that even within a deviant setting, some participants are defined as more deviant than others’.
Workman, Arseneau, and Ewell, in their T-shirt study, hope to prevent deviance. Their report ends with a stark, clarion call: ‘School administrators sometimes need empirical evidence to justify a ban on certain clothing items. [Our] study provides empirical evidence to justify a ban on alcohol promotional clothing items.’
Workman, Jane E., Naomi E. Arseneau, and Chandra J. Ewell (2004). ‘Traits and Behaviors Assigned to an Adolescent Weari
ng an Alcohol Promotional T-Shirt.’ Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 33 (1): 498–516.
Darden, Donna, and Steven Worden (1991). ‘Identity Announcement in Mass Society: The T-shirt.’ Sociological Spectrum 11 (1): 67–79.
Worden, Steven, and Donna Darden (1992). ‘Knives and Gaffs: Definitions in the Deviant World of Cockfighting.’ Deviant Behavior 13: 271–89.
Fat Chance of Criminality?
Fat people are more likely to become criminals, and their very fatness may help shape their criminality. That’s the conclusion reached by Professor Gregory N. Price in a study called ‘Obesity and Crime: Is There a Relationship?’ published in the journal Economics Letters.
Price, an economist at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, writes that his findings accord with a wide body of earlier economics research: ‘There is evidence that for individuals, being obese lowers wages, reduces labor force participation, constrains occupational attainment, and inhibits the formation of human capital that is important for labor market success. To the extent these labor market effects of obesity reduce the incentives an individual has for engaging in legitimate labor market activities, it is plausible obesity could increase individual incentives for engaging in illegitimate activities such as crime – an idea which we explore empirically.’
Using that traditional royal ‘we’, Price explains: ‘Our data consists of offenders with last name starting with the letter “A” incarcerated in the state of Mississippi as of August 20, 2005.’
He (that is, ‘we’) took nineteen variables into consideration. These include each person’s age, gender, height, waist circumference, race, and thirteen different aspects of the person’s fatness.
One variable is called ‘scrabble’. Price explains that ‘the scrabble score of inmate first name is based upon the numeric values assigned to letters in the board game Scrabble, produced and distributed by both Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc’. He cites earlier studies (by researchers named Figlio, Bertrand, and Mullainathan) as to why the Scrabble value of a person’s name is significant: ‘Figlio (2005) shows that individuals with low socioeconomic status have a tendency to have first names with a high scrabble value ... Figlio finds that for black students in a large Florida public school district, having a surname with a high scrabble value, as part of an index of socioeconomic status, has a negative effect on test scores. As test scores are a component of human capital, this suggests that the blackness of a name as measured by the scrabble score, can have adverse labor market effects (Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004), which could increase the probability that crime is acceptable to an individual.’
In a touch that seems literary as well as econometric, the paper also cites an economist named Gloom, who expounds on a fine point concerning the ratio of median to mean income.
Price ends by discussing the implications of his discovery. He writes: ‘Public health policies successful at reducing obesity among individuals in the population will not only make society healthier, but also safer. If obesity among individuals in the population increases the probability that they will engage in criminal activities, reductions in obesity among individuals would also reduce individual crime hazards, and society’s overall crime rate.’
Price, Gregory N. (2009). ‘Obesity and Crime: Is There a Relationship?’ Economics Letters 103: 149–52.
Gloom, Gerhard (2004). ‘Inequality, Majority Voting, and the Redistributive Effects of Public Education Funding.’ Pacific Economic Review 9: 93–101.
In Brief
‘Cause of Microbial Death during Freezing in a Soft-Serve Ice Cream Freezer’
by J. Foley and J. J. Sheuring (published in the Journal of Dairy Science, 1966)
Behind-the-Cutting-Edge Research
In this era of stun guns, two-thousand-pound bombs, and too-advanced-to-be-tested strategic missile defence systems, few individuals understand the effect of knife-handle shape on stabbing performance. Ian Horsfall and his colleagues are among the proud, happy band of brothers and sisters. Their report, ‘The Effect of Knife Handle Shape on Stabbing Performance’, makes it easy for all of us to share in this knowledge.
The team is based at the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University, in Swindon, UK. The report’s title is a measure of the scientists’ modesty: they studied not just the handle’s shape, but also its size.
‘The bottom line’, Horsfall says, ‘is that stabbing performance is almost wholly dependent on the person and not a function of the knife handle.’ He emphasizes that ‘this paper doesn’t in any way illustrate how to stab people’. The thrust of the research is how to protect people against knife stabs, and, especially, how to design police body armour.
Previous investigations, including some by these same scientists, looked at the basic physics of stabbing. The topic was of interest to Arthur Conan Doyle, who reported the following exchange between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson: ‘He chuckled as he poured out the coffee. “If you could have looked into Allardyce’s back shop, you would have seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in his shirt sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. I was that energetic person, and I have satisfied myself that by no exertion of my strength can I transfix the pig with a single blow.”’
No one, not even Holmes, gave full attention to the geometries of knife handles. Horsfall et al. sought to correct this oversight.
Knife-stabbing-force analysis is partly theoretical, partly experimental. The experiments tend to be colourful, sometimes involving the carcasses of hefty vertebrates and some gaudily sharp instruments (sabers and ‘commando’ style blades were once in vogue). As Horsfall et al. put it in an earlier paper, stabbing ‘is a relatively complex task, as not only are there a wide variety of possible weapons but also a highly variable human element in powering the weapon’.
The new experiment used eleven volunteer stabbers of various sizes. They used a knife that was fitted with special measurement instruments, and at various times, with four interchangeable – and very different – kinds of handle.
‘Underarm stab action’ demonstrated
The volunteers did not get to stab any carcasses. Instead, they plunged their blades into a meat substitute – a 5.5-millimetre-thick aramidthermoplastic composite sheet held in front of a large clay block. After all was done and said, they had demonstrated that fussing about knife handles is a nearly irrelevant, albeit gripping, distraction. No matter how you slice it, he stabs best who is skilful and strong.
Horsfall, I., C. Watson, S. Champion, P. Prosser, and T. Ringrose (2005). ‘The Effect of Knife Handle Shape on Stabbing Performance.’ Applied Ergonomics 36 (4): 505–11.
Horsfall, I., P. D. Prosser, C. H. Watson, and S. M. Champion (1999). ‘An Assessment of Human Performance in Stabbing.’ Forensic Science International 102 (2-3): 79–89.
Crazed Security
‘Who watches the watchers?’ becomes an especially interesting question when the watchers are psychotic. A team of doctors from Texas and California explored this question in 1993 in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. Their names are J. A. Silva, G. B. Leong, and R. Weinstock. Their study is called ‘The Psychotic Patient as Security Guard’. Quickly, they confide: ‘Although the public assumes that only mentally healthy individuals who possess the capability to handle stressful situations become employed as security guards, this may not be the case.’
The doctors discuss what they call ‘a small sample of security guards who suffered from psychotic disorders’. That phrase ‘a small sample’ is tantalizing. It suggests the unasked and unanswered question: ‘What percentage of security guards are psychotic?’ The authors do, somewhat disjointedly, make a point of saying that ‘further work is needed to determine the proportion of psychotic inpatients who are security guards’.
Their small sample consists of fifteen guards, one of whom, identified as Mr A, gets an especially detailed examination. Mr A became a security guard after being discharged from prison for using a knife to
try to obey voices that told him to kill a stranger. The doctors report that eventually ‘Mr A quit his security guard job on the advice of his auditory hallucination’.
Thirteen of the fifteen met all the diagnostic criteria for paranoid-type schizophrenia. The other two were classed as having schizoaffective disorder. Eight said they had experienced hallucinations and paranoid delusions while on the job.
Of the fifteen, only eight mentioned having a history of aggression, and only three said they had attacked people with a knife. Only one had assaulted someone while on the job; he was the only one of the fifteen who routinely carried a weapon while at work. Two others said they had obtained permits to carry guns, but had not taken advantage of those permits.
This particular combination of profession and mental condition, the report hints, may have its tiny good side. ‘A mild degree of suspiciousness’, they write, ‘may be adaptive for the security guard.’ This is illustrated by the case of Mr A. Although Mr A became increasingly paranoid during his time on the job, ‘he felt safe as his auditory hallucinations would warn him and help him discriminate potential intruders from passers-by’.
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