Humans

By Mary Robinette Kowal
Joonho Brian Ko

The low November light swept in under the clouds and flooded the wall of windows with golden light. Inez Townsend tilted her head away from the glittering sea water outside the Harpa concert hall and hoped that the reporters thought she looked interested, not squinty. She had agonized over what to wear to her first press conference and finally settled on standard concert attire, a simple black tunic, but had given a nod to her new home in Iceland by swapping a pair of knee-high black boots and leggings for her usual pumps.
The audience was a mix of high-level donors and journalists. It was easy to tell them apart, and not just because the journalists had lens augments glinting from their foreheads like third eyes, but the donors sipped champagne and wore natural fibers that made all the printed fabrics seem stiff and flat. Thank God her dress was cotton.Advertisement
Next to her, Sóldís Vilhjálmsdottir was effortlessly glamorous, with her silver curls tumbling around her face as if she’d just woken up from a tryst with Odin. The Chief Conductor and Artistic Director for the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra was tall and slender and had lines that made her face seem more interesting with every one of her seventy-six years. Just sitting next to her made Inez feel like her life was finally taking off.
All she had to do now was not remind anyone that she was all of twenty-two and the least experienced person in the room.
“Here, yes, we are happy to introduce to you the results of our competition for emerging voices.” Her voice had the breathy Icelandic aspiration at the ends of each word as if the wind were snatching extra sound from between her teeth. “First, please meet our new composer in residence, Ragnhildur Leifsdottir. Ragnhildur is an Icelandic composer, of course, who had studied at the Royal College of Music in London before returning here. She has already had success in Europe with her work, Autumn Concerto. Tell them what you have written for us.’”
“It is structured in three movements, and it is for orchestra and solo piano with twelve fingers”
On her far side, Ragnhildur blushed and studied her hands, twiddling her thumb augments with obvious nerves. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bun so severe that the little tendril in the front looked like a comma. “It’s an orchestral piece with solo piano –”
Sóldís moved the microphone closer to Ragnhildur and Inez made a note to speak up when it was her turn.
Clearing her throat, Ragnhildur started again. “It is called Einhverfjöll, which for those of you without augments, translates to ‘Some Mountains.’ It is structured in three movements, Svartur or ‘Black,’ Blár or ‘Blue’ and Ljós or ‘Light,’ and it is for orchestra and solo piano with twelve fingers.”
Inez twitched, almost bodily turning to stare at Ragnhildur. Twelve fingers. That meant augments. Inez didn’t have augments. Augments were the unholy in the sight of God- No. No, she knew lots of good people with augments and-
Sóldís turned to look at her. With effort Inez kept her smile fixed and was grateful that the conductor had been turned away when Ragnhildur had said twelve fingers. But seriously. To just announce that without asking her?
“Now, please allow me to introduce our pianist, Inez Townsend, an American pianist here on scholarship to the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Inez has been a finalist in the Van Cliburn competition, and she’s been playing professionally since the age of thirteen. We especially picked her from a field of many other pianists because her approach to the piano seemed to pair naturally with Ragnhildur’s vision.”
Except for the part about twelve fingers. Inez’s smile felt frozen to rigidity as Sóldís turned the microphone to her. “Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.” They could talk about it later. Questioning her conductor in front of donors and the journalists wouldn’t win her any friends. “Ragnhildur’s other work is stunning and I’m honored to be invited to play this debut.”
The rest of the news conference passed in a blur of smiles and questions. The clouds scudded past Mt Esja, dimming the sun on the water to a bearable level, but an ache started to form between her eyes. Twelve fingers.
“Thank you all for your questions. We look forward to showing you our work in the spring.” Sóldís pushed back from the table, standing with a smile. She lowered her voice and beckoned Ragnhildur and Inez to follow her. “Now, we have champagne and I introduce you to people.”
Inez’s phone buzzed on her wrist. She looked down, keenly aware in this moment that if she were a normal person, she’d have a jewelphone in her ear. A jewelphone wasn’t a real augment and yet she’d never been able to bring herself to have that fight with her parents.
Which was who was calling. She tapped it off, knowing what they were going to say.
“Something?” Sóldís stood next to her, with her head tilted to the side as she peered through her grey curls.
“Hm? No. No.” But maybe she could get them to make a change. “Actually… well. Yes. The twelve fingers. That… that was a surprise.”
“For me as well. But it is exciting, yes?”
“Well. But… I mean, is it really necessary? To have twelve fingers, I mean.”
Sóldís steered her a little away from the table where they’d been for the press conference, leading her to face the windows so that their backs were to the room. “Is it a problem?”
Yes, of course it was a problem. Inez didn’t even have pierced ears, much less any sort of augmentation. But her heart started to push against her ribs and the large room seemed to tighten around her.
Leaning down, Sóldís’s lips were pursed as she studied Inez. “You ask if it is necessary. Surely you are not suggesting that we suppress Ragnhildur’s vision.”
“No. No, of course not.” She swallowed and sweat beaded at the back of her neck under her hair. “I was just surprised. It’s… it’s not something that I’m entirely comfortable with.”
“I can see this troubles you.” Straightening, Sóldís faced the water, fingers steepled in front of her as if she were contemplating a score. “Here is my thinking… If you feel strongly that this is something you do not wish to do, we will not, of course, force you. You can return the money and we can award it to one of the runners-up.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean… I just wish that someone had asked.”
“Yes. Of course… Of course, I also wish that you had mentioned in your interviews that you had some parameters under which you would not work.”
“I didn’t say that.” The pain between her eyes crept around to her temple. She couldn’t afford to return the money. And even if she could, the grant came with a visa and she needed that. She needed this whole thing as a stepping stone to get citizenship in Iceland. She swallowed and tried again. “The fact is that I don’t have robotic thumbs and I… I can’t afford them. Not anything that you could play a concert with.”
Beaming, Sóldís spread her hands. “Is that the only obstacle? But of course, we will provide them. We have a sponsor and you will have the very best quality thumbs.”
“Great.” Inez’s smile probably looked as ill as the sweat slicking her back. “That solves everything.”
Except her family.
#
Inez was crouching in front of her apartment’s tiny refrigerator with a bag of groceries on the floor when her phone rang. Her parents. Sighing, she tucked the skyr into an empty spot next to the ab-mjólk. There was only so long she could avoid her folks.
She transferred the call to the kitchen’s wall screen. “Hi, Mom and Dad.”
“Hi pumpkin!” Her father’s cheery voice made her shoulders relax. “What are you doing down there?”
“Putting away groceries.” She slid the frozen plokkfiskur into the even tinier freezer cubby.
“Show me your hands.” Her mother’s voice sounded crisp and monied and was complete artifice. It was the “I’m very angry voice.”
“Yes, of course it was a problem. Inez didn’t even have pierced ears, much less any sort of augmentation”
“Seriously?” Inez swiveled on her heels, peering up at the screen her parents were on. She lifted her hands and waved at them. Ten fingers total and only two of them were thumbs. “Happy?”
“No. I am not happy.” Her mother shook her head. “I told your grandmother to watch that news conference. The only thing saving us is that she was at bingo this morning. Twelve fingers! Do you have any idea what that would have done to her?”
“Sarah…” Her dad put his hand on her mom’s and leaned toward the camera. “We’re just confused. Twelve fingers… Is that like four hands. A second pianist plays with you or… What does that mean, exactly?”
She stood up, dragging the bag of groceries with her. She wasn’t going to look up like a child to have this conversation with them. “Solo piano. The piece requires thumb augments.”
He sighed. “I’m disappointed to hear that.”
Inez winced and put the bag on the counter. “It’s not like it’s a permanent augment. It’s just temporary.”
True and also, to really hit professional performance levels, she was going to have to wear them 24/7. They would have to become completely natural to her. She pulled the granola out of the bag and set it on the counter.
Next to the thumbs. The box was out of the line of sight of the wall unit, but she still pushed it farther back so her parents couldn’t see it.
“Sweetheart, you know that isn’t the problem.”
Inez shook her head and opened the cabinet to put away the small jar of peanut butter she’d found at the health food store. No one in this country willingly ate the stuff and it was outrageously expensive, but it reminded her of home. “How different is this, really, from wearing glasses?”
Not that she’d put the thumbs on yet. She’d had them for two days and they just hung out on her counter.
“It’s not the same at all.” Her mother leaned forward. “Augments rewrite your brain.”
“Really?” She paused with a box of pasta in one hand and stared at the camera. “Now you’re using science to make your arguments.”
Her father was an engineer so that wasn’t entirely fair and his sigh said as much. “Everything rewrites the brain. That plasticity is what makes it good at learning. You’ve spent your entire life learning to play the piano and neither your mother nor I could do more than Chopsticks. And that’s because your brain has been rewired to pla-” His image froze with his mouth half open as the internet blipped.” -can’t play without them.”
“You froze for a moment.”
He grimaced. “Sorry. We’ve been having brownouts all day.”
“It’s the electric cars.” Her mother shook her head. “They keep promising to upgrade the infrastructure in our neighborhood, but…”
“But everyone gets home from work and they all plug their cars in at the same time.” Her dad shrugged. “Progress.”
“I get it. But I’ve also read that your brain flips back to normal after about two weeks of not using an augment.”
“Really.” Her mother looked dubious. “That’s not what I’ve seen.”
“I wasn’t aware of your vast experience with augmented people.”
“When people join the church, they stop using augments. So yes, I do have experience with augmented people and their transition back to their natural gifts.” Her voice had gone icy, which meant that they were one sentence away from “don’t get snippy with me, young lady.” “There is nothing that-”
Joonho Brian Ko
She froze mid-sentence, mouth twisted to the side and one eye half closed. Inez kept putting groceries away, waiting for her parents to start moving again.
The brownouts reminded her that this fellowship wasn’t just about the music. Iceland, with its geothermal power, never had brownouts. It had beautiful clean air and a universal living wage and socialized medicine and all the things that her home might have had but chose not to. Well, maybe not the geothermal. But windfarms could have been a thing. This wasn’t just about her career. If she could get citizenship in Iceland then she could serve as an anchor to bring her parents over.
The screen went dark. Call lost.
“Inside lay two robotic thumbs chased in silver and deep blue-green like the sun glinting on the Atlantic”
She sighed and tucked the shopping bag back into its elastic pocket to make a tidy ball for the next shopping trip. Sighing again, she grabbed the box from the counter and went into her living room where the piano was. Two pages of Einhverfjöll were sitting on the piano. Ragnhildur was still writing the rest, but SÓldís had slipped her these two pages as a sort of temptation or promise.
Even on the page, even as a sketch, it was already beautiful. It should be something that filled her with delight, but she felt trapped into playing it. They should have asked her. Biting her lower lip, Inez pushed the piano bench back with her foot and sat down. The first notes dropped down like scattered rain on stone, clear and beautiful and not quite random. Then from the left hand a gust of wind pushed up into-
She didn’t have enough fingers.
The missing notes left aching holes in the music. Fine. Fine. She grabbed the box and broke the seal on the edges. Inside, in beautiful pristine white board, lay two robotic thumbs chased in silver and deep blue-green like the sun glinting on the Atlantic. A pair of transmitters lay next to them in a flat, discreet black with a geckoskin adhesive on the surface. Those would go on her ankles.
She knew that much from having seen colleagues use them in college to extend their reach. Wetting her lips, she pulled out the instruction manual and started skimming it. There were details and there was the quick start.
For now, that would do.
Inez tugged her woolen socks down and grabbed the left ankle sensor. She placed the flat sensor on the inside of her ankle, over the bone, where it would get signals sent to her big toe. The geckoskin adjusted and hugged against her ankle like the second skin it was designed to be. The other sensor went to the matching spot on her right ankle. Both felt like manacles and she had to resist the urge to kick them off. She’d get used to the sensation.
The thumbs went on with a similar patch, but also included a structural band that went around her wrist as a safety. The deep blue was a shocking contrast to her hand. Would it be better if it matched her skin tone?
Did the obvious artifice make it more offensive or less.
She wasn’t sure and she wasn’t sure that it actually mattered. She had to learn to use them, regardless of how she felt. She touched the tips of the thumbs together and activated them.
They twitched and then waited, inert, next to the rest of her fingers. According to the quick start, she just had to move her big toe and they would respond accordingly. Concentrating, Inez tried to flex her toe. The right thumb moved.
The gorge rose in the back of her throat. Her chest tightened.
This was fine. She let out her breath. This wasn’t any different from eyeglasses or a pacemaker, all of which were totally normal things. This was just a small, temporary augment.
Carefully, she touched the thumb to each fingertip on her right hand and then tried the same on her left. It was slow and awkward, but she managed it. Theoretically, the AI on board would calibrate as she went about her day, learning what ordinary movements were from her.
She looked back at the sheet music and set her hands on the piano. The geckoskin squeezed as she rested the thumbs against the specific keys giving her haptic feedback of the contact. Wetting her lips, she tried to play a scale with this new extra spread.
Her notes were slow and clumsy as if she were four again. Under her twelve fingers, the piano had become a strange landscape. The notes on the page of Einhverfjöll seemed even farther out of reach. Before she’d just been missing a few notes. Now she couldn’t play at all.
The phone rang. Her parents again.
Inez ground her teeth together and ignored the phone. She started playing a scale. Twelve fingers. One at a time.
#
The cafe in Harpa was bright and cozy, even on dark days. As the calendar tipped into December, only about five hours of daylight remained and Inez tried to make certain she got daylight for at least some of them. The Christmas tree was up on the plaza outside Harpa and the lights reflected on the angled panes of the large windows. She stared past it toward the city, holding her cup of cocoa with her augmented thumb and palm while she stirred it idly with her natural thumb and index finger.
“Hallo!” Ragnhildur stopped on the broad stairs by the cafe table and held up a steaming cup. “I see we have the same idea.”
“Windowless studios are good for concentration but… I was getting a little fuzzy-headed.” Inez pushed back from the table and accidentally flexed her toe.
The mug dropped from her grasp, hitting the edge of the table and shattering. Cocoa went everywhere. She gasped as the hot liquid soaked her skirt. Her hands were clumsy as she tried to pull the cloth away from her skin.
Ragnhildur had danced back to avoid getting splashed and now darted forward, grabbing a napkin from the table. “Here! Can I help? Are you hurt?”
“Fine.” She held the fabric away from her legs and dabbed at it with the napkin, which soaked through immediately. “Fine. It wasn’t that hot.”
Her cheeks were probably hotter than the coffee at this point.
“We all drop things.” But Ragnhildur’s gaze had drifted to the thumbs.
“Yes, but this was so stupid.” Inez wanted to reassure her that this was an aberration. “All I had to do was keep my toe curled when I stood. It didn’t even need to be tightly curled, just not flexed.”
“I know.” She held up her hand, which had thumb augments that moved as naturally as if they were a part of her body. “If… I might be able to rework the piece. I know you weren’t comfor-”
“No.” She let the sodden cloth drop and straightened. “Don’t. I’ll be ready when you finish writing it.”
#
The main concert hall in Harpa was vast and lined with blood-red panels. The windows at the top of the seaward wall were dark oblongs of night. Inez shifted from one foot to the other while the orchestra tuned on stage. It was a familiar space. The murmur of the audience could have been in any language and still woven the same spell of anticipation.
“Her notes were slow and clumsy. Under her twelve fingers, the piano had become a strange landscape”
Sóldís stopped beside her, resplendent in her white tie and tails. Her mop of silver curls was brushed back from her face in a smooth coif that would shake free with her energy over the course of the evening. “You must introduce me to your parents after. I did not see them during the pre-show reception.”
“They aren’t here.” She stared straight ahead at the bright stage.
Beside her, she could feel Sóldís turn to regard her, probably with an eyebrow raised. “Please tell me that we did not neglect to tell you of our arrangement with Icelandair.”
“No. We’re… No, they just decided not to come.” It was just as well. She would have felt them judging her all night and the week beforehand. And on all the phone calls that she had stopped taking.
“Hm.” She faced front again. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
With a nod, Sóldís Vilhjálmsdottir strode onto the stage and her orchestra rose. The audience applauded their respects as she walked to center stage and bowed. Then she turned and held out her hand to the wings.
To Inez.
Head high, Inez walked the distance to her piano. The audience clapped, but not with the warmth of the welcome they gave to Sóldís. It was generous and appropriate and nothing more than that. They didn’t know her.
Nodding to Sóldís, Inez sat at her piano and looked past the ebony wood into the darkness of the concert hall. The glow from the stage just picked out the front row. Ragnhildur sat, with her elbows on her knees, leaning toward the light of the stage. It was her music they played tonight, but she wasn’t up here. She had to trust Sóldís and the orchestra and Inez.
That… that was who she was playing for tonight.
Inez poised her hands over the keyboard, thumbs of her left hand spread to play that first gust of wind. She looked up to meet her conductor’s eyes and nodded that she was ready. The tempo counted in and her right hand let rain fall.
#
Flushed, trembling after an encore – an encore! – Inez closed the door of her dressing room and leaned against it. The music was still filling her bloodstream and pounding through the small bones in her wrists. They hadn’t planned for an encore, but the audience had kept applauding Ragnhildur’s work. That last movement, played again, with Ragnhildur on stage, surrounded by the music and carried into the light of the Ljós movement, which went from sunrise to the shifting eddies of the Northern Lights.
She wanted to play it again.
Right now. Exhausted and exhilarated, she wanted to play it again.
On the dressing table, her wrist phone rang. Even from here, she could see her parents’ photo on the screen. She closed her eyes. They called after every performance. Letting out a breath, she opened her eyes and crossed the room. Swiping the phone, she sent the call onto the dressing room’s wall screen.
“Hi Mom and Dad. Sorry that I haven’t… Sorry.”
They were beaming at the camera. Her mother leaned in close. “No, I’m sorry. We should have been there for you but, well… we weren’t sure you wanted us.”
“But we watched the stream!” Her dad pointed at the camera but probably meant their wall screen. “We’re so, so proud of you.”
“Six curtain calls! And an encore!” Her mother clapped her hands together and held them in front of her face in an almost prayer. “You were just… just splendid tonight.”
Her chest filled as the last remnants of distress ebbed away. “Thanks!” They should have been here. “I’m sorry that I kept missing your calls. The time zones and rehearsal schedules…”
Her dad waved away her lies. “You needed to concentrate. I get it.” He tilted his head to the side and cleared his throat. “So… do you have to keep wearing them?”
The warmth in her chest went cold. She opened her mouth to say that they had performances on the next three weekends. And also… she’d had the thumbs off to take showers. The five minutes it would take to have this call with her parents would be less time that that.
“The music was still filling her bloodstream and pounding through the small bones in her wrists”
“Sure. I can take them off.” She used her right thumbs to undo the strap on the left but getting the other one off was weird and clumsy. “So. There’s apparently a deal with Icelandair. Do you want to come out for one of the other weekends?”
“Oh, that would be lovely. If we won’t be in the way.”
Joonho Brian Ko
She shook her head, rubbing the bare spot where the thumb should be. “We can do the Golden Circle.” But she would have the thumbs on. “Or maybe when we’re done with this run? Then I won’t have anything to pull me away.”
“Fantastic!” Her dad seemed to understand what she wasn’t saying. That she would have the thumbs on for most of their visit. “That’s even better.”
“Well, you go on now. I’m sure there are people who want to talk to you. We just wanted you to know that we were proud. Even if-” Her mother checked herself. “We were proud of you.”
Her heart was full and heavy with a sort of yearning to be with her parents and a relief that they were not, in fact, here. Not yet. But when she applied for citizenship, this performance tonight would help.
When she got off the call, Inez rested her hands on the piano in her dressing room. The keys felt unfamiliar and her hand placement was weird and off. She rolled up an arpeggio and it was okay not having the left thumb, but the right… it felt like a note was missing. As if she had to stretch in ways that she should not.
Which was exactly what her parents had warned her about.
They were right. She had rewired her brain. Playing the piano now without the thumbs would feel like a loss.
Someone rapped on her door. She wiped her eyes – not because she was actually crying but just that she was over-emotional after the performance. “Come in?”
Ragnhildur stuck her head around the door. “Hello favorite person! Sóldís is taking us out to celebrate. With the benefactors.” A tendril of her blonde hair had escaped its bun. “You are coming. Yes? There is talk of The Future which, I am not certain what it means, exactly, but I am certain that the immediate future involves very good cocktails at a very good club.”
“Absolutely. Just give me a minute to grab my things.” She grinned at the other woman. “Very good cocktails sounds like exactly the thing.”
“Just don’t spill it!”
“Ha!” She turned to the dressing table and picked up one of the thumbs. “I won’t.”
Inez put her thumbs back where they should be and went to find out what the future held in its twelve-fingered hands.

Bio
Mary Robinette Kowal
Hugo and Nebula-award winning author Mary Robinette Kowal’s books include The Calculating Stars, which is part of the Lady Astronaut series, and Shades of Milk and Honey

More on these topics: More

William of Ockham was tried for heresy before the Pope, only to make a daring escape. His big idea, known as Occam’s razor, remains the keenest tool for honing our understanding of the world

Humans

15 December 2021

By Johnjoe McFadden
Kiki ljung
ON MY daily drive into work at the University of Surrey, I pass a road sign to Ockham. Perhaps a slight difference in spelling is one reason why it took me a surprising while to realise the English village’s connection to one of the most fundamental concepts in science – I would argue, in my now more enlightened state, perhaps its most fundamental concept.
I am talking about Occam’s razor. The creation of a 14th-century theologian with a racy life story, this is a principle often quoted as “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. It urges us to choose the simplest explanations or models for any phenomenon we observe. If you see moving lights in the night sky, say, think of known existing entities such as aeroplanes, satellites or shooting stars before considering flying saucers.
It has been a tool for scientific progress, not to mention a guiding principle for our own thoughts, right up to the present day. But I believe that modern science has rather lost sight of the simple fact that simplicity is the sharpest guide to greater truths.
Ockham is linked to Occam’s razor by virtue of William of Ockham. Born in the village around 1285, William went to a local Franciscan school before being sent to Oxford to study theology, then known as “the Queen of Sciences”. This title was largely due to the influence of Italian theologian Thomas Aquinas, who had recently Christianised the work of the greatest scientist of ancient Greece, Aristotle.
That mind-meld had supplied five scientific “proofs” of the existence of God, a variety of metaphysical essences of reality known … More

By David Robson
Dario Mitidieri/Getty Images
“WHILE there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.” So wrote Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol. He was in London in the 1840s, but these words ring true in any time or place. Laughter is one of humanity’s few universal traits. Even in the time of covid-19, many people have found that a good chuckle has helped them cope with the stresses, uncertainties and interminable lockdowns.
It is surprising, then, that psychologists and neuroscientists were once reluctant to devote serious attention to laughter, with many believing expressions of mirth to be less important than those of unhappiness or despair. “Psychology still has a lot of catching up to do to balance out what is known about negative emotions with positive ones,” says Gina Mireault at Northern Vermont University.
This has been science’s loss because recent results reveal that there is far more to laughter than you might think. Beyond the obvious connection with humour, it offers some truly profound insights into the nature of our relationships and the state of our health. The study of infant giggles may even help us understand how we develop our sense of self and the ability to read the minds of others. What’s more, laughter turns out to be surprisingly common in other species.
Non-human animals aren’t known for their sharp wits, but many do engage in play, often producing characteristic sounds to signal that their behaviour is friendly rather than aggressive. According to a review by Sasha Winkler and Gregory Bryant at the University of California, Los … More

Computer predictions for the outcome of European football matches over a 26-year period become more accurate in recent years

Humans

15 December 2021

By Chris Stokel-Walker
A match between KRC Genk and Club Brugge in the Belgian First Division AJoris Verwijst/BSR Agency/Getty Images
Football matches have become more predictable over time, according to an analysis of 87,816 matches across 11 European leagues.
The study covers the results of matches between 1993 and 2019, including 10,044 each from England’s Premier League and Spain’s La Liga, as well as leading divisions in Belgium, Greece, Scotland and Turkey, among others.
A computer model that was given data from the matches tried to predict whether the home or away team would win by looking at the performance of the teams in previous matches in the league. The model didn’t count any drawn matches, which excluded between a quarter and a third of the total matches from the analysis.Advertisement
“Our model isn’t the most accurate,” says Taha Yasseri at University College Dublin in Ireland. “I’m sure there are better models, but it’s very simple and you can go back 26 years and do the exercise as if you were doing the prediction 26 years ago.”
The average AUC score – which measures how well the computer model performed – was around 0.75, meaning that the model correctly predicted the match result 75 per cent of the time.

Seven of the 11 leagues that were studied saw an increase in predictability over time. Richer leagues, such as the Premier League and La Liga, had higher AUC scores than worse-funded ones, like Belgium’s First Division A.
The study found a correlation between predictability and inequality, in terms of the distribution of points between teams at the end of the season – that is, match results are predicted correctly more often in leagues where the points are spread more unequally.
The researchers suggest that football is becoming more predictable because inequality between the richest and poorest teams has grown, as prize money and other revenues have increased and successful clubs can spend more on players.
The study also found that home team advantage is becoming less of a factor in matches. In France, for instance, home teams took around two-thirds of points in 1993, but around 58 per cent of them in 2019.
Joey O’Brien at the University of Limerick, Ireland, says the researchers make rigorous statistical arguments that football has become more predictable. “Perhaps, at a more philosophical level, one could also question whether this predictability is good for the game,” he says. “Do fans get just as much enjoyment observing skilled teams predictably performing strongly?”
Journal reference: Royal Society Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.210617

More on these topics: More

Maternal body odour signals to babies that they can safely build relationships with other adults, a trait that may have evolved so that mothers can share the load of child rearing

Humans

10 December 2021

By Alice Klein
A mother and daughterfizkes/Shutterstock
Babies are more socially receptive to unfamiliar women when they can smell their mother’s natural body odour, suggesting that maternal scent functions as a safety signal.
Previous research has found that mothers’ unique smell signatures allow their babies to recognise them and have a soothing effect when they are in pain.
Yaara Endevelt-Shapira at The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, and her colleagues wondered if signals in maternal odour also change the way that infants respond to strangers.Advertisement
They asked 62 mothers to wear cotton T-shirts for two consecutive nights and avoid using deodorant or other scented products, so that their natural smell would rub off onto the clothing.
Their babies – aged 7 months on average – were then strapped into chairs and introduced to an unfamiliar woman who was about the same age as their mother, lived in the same area and was a mother herself.
When the babies had their mother’s T-shirt under their nose, they were more likely to smile, laugh and gaze at the stranger than if they were sniffing an identical unworn T-shirt.
Electroencephalography (EEG) devices fitted to both participants’ heads showed that the babies’ electrical brainwaves were also more likely to synchronise with the stranger’s when they could smell their mother’s T-shirt. The same kind of brainwave synchronisation is found between babies and their mothers when they gaze at each other and is thought to be a sign of feeling mutual connection.
The findings suggest that “maternal body odours can assist infants in transitioning to social groups, exploring new environments and communicating with unfamiliar partners”, says Endevelt-Shapira.

This could explain why bringing a “transitional object” like a blanket or cuddly toy from home can help young children settle into nursery school, because it might smell a bit like their mother, says Endevelt-Shapira. The researchers didn’t look at whether the scent of fathers or other familiar caregivers can have a similar effect.
Human babies benefit from bonding with adults other than their parents because they are more helpless than the young of other species and often require a wider circle of care, says Endevelt-Shapira. This may be why maternal odour facilitates these external relationships, she says.
The current study found that maternal scent helps babies to bond with women who are similar to their own mothers, but more research is needed to see if the effect extends to women from different cultures and men, says Endevelt-Shapira.
Journal reference: Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg6867
Sign up to our free Health Check newsletter for a round-up of all the health and fitness news you need to know, every Saturday

More on these topics: More

By Gregory Wakeman
Malik (Riz Ahmed, centre) is determined to prepare his sons to fight the aliensAmazon Content Services LLC
Encounter
Michael Pearce
UK cinemas, Amazon PrimeAdvertisement
ENCOUNTER brings together three of the most exciting stars in the British film industry: director Michael Pearce, whose debut feature Beast was critically acclaimed on its release in 2017, screenwriter Joe Barton, who created the equally lauded Giri/Haji, and Riz Ahmed, whose performances in Four Lions, The Night Of and Sound Of Metal secured his status as one of the UK’s best actors.
For the first half of Encounter, their talents complement each other perfectly. Ahmed stars as Malik Khan, an ex-soldier on a mission to rescue his two young children Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada) when the world comes under attack from an extraterrestrial invasion that is made more terrifying by the fact that the aliens come in the form of parasitic microorganisms that first infect insects, then move on to tackle humans.
Encounter begins by immediately establishing the seriousness of the extraterrestrial threat. Before the title sequence even hits the screen, we see the aliens arrive on Earth, attack insects and then quickly explode in numbers. Pearce shoots this sequence with a detail that is simple to follow yet sinister and creepy. So much so that the subsequent shots of insects will make your skin crawl.
The action ratchets up further when Malik’s ex-wife Piya (Janina Gavankar), who doesn’t see the rescue in quite the same light, informs the authorities that her children have been kidnapped. Special agents Shepard (Rory Cochrane) and Hattie (Octavia Spencer) are put on the case and set off in pursuit across the mountains and deserts of California and Nevada.
At this early stage of the film, it is a blast, successfully towing the line between a riveting sci-fi drama and a road-trip movie.
Ahmed commands the screen instantly, giving Malik a toughness and intensity that emerge gradually as the story progresses. The young actors who play his sons are just as impressive, but for very different reasons. It won’t take long for audiences to be charmed by Geddada, who brings a much needed levity and heart to the film. Chauhan becomes more confident as time goes on, displaying an impressive maturity and strength of character. Pearce gives Malik, Jay and Bobby the space to build a genuinely touching connection.
“Ahmed commands the screen, giving Malik a toughness and intensity as the story progresses”
With all this going on amid the beauty and desolation of the Californian mountains, it is impossible not to be drawn into the story. Barton’s economical and believable script propels the film forwards, while providing just enough backstory on the alien attack to keep audiences intrigued. The soundtrack, too, subtly makes the alien creatures feel present and menacing, without ever allowing the sound of their advancement to get in the way of the scene-building and storytelling.
Then, just when Encounter is really getting under way, Pearce hits us with a seismic shift in direction. While potentially a deliberate ploy to surprise the audience and keep us engaged, it doesn’t quite work. Instead, it disrupts what was building into a beautiful and unnervingly atmospheric experience and throws us for a loop. For a good 10 minutes after this turn, it feels as if the story is thrashing around. It is unnerving to say the least.
Despite this unexpected shift in perspective, the narrative isn’t entirely derailed. It soon finds its footing again, and Ahmed’s continually powerful performance ensures that Encounter remains intriguing all the way to its finale. Chauhan, alongside him, does a great job at keeping the intensity high.
On the other hand, anyone who was enjoying the sci-fi-cum-road-trip experience may find themselves less invested in the more intimate and psychological character study that Encounter becomes. Ultimately, by the time the credits roll, it feels like two separate movies that have been jammed together to form an uneven psychological sci-fi thriller that, while good, could have been so much more.

More on these topics: More

By Gregory Wakeman
Malik (Riz Ahmed, centre) is determined to prepare his sons to fight the aliensAmazon Content Services LLC
Encounter
Michael Pearce
UK cinemas, Amazon PrimeAdvertisement
ENCOUNTER brings together three of the most exciting stars in the British film industry: director Michael Pearce, whose debut feature Beast was critically acclaimed on its release in 2017, screenwriter Joe Barton, who created the equally lauded Giri/Haji, and Riz Ahmed, whose performances in Four Lions, The Night Of and Sound Of Metal secured his status as one of the UK’s best actors.
For the first half of Encounter, their talents complement each other perfectly. Ahmed stars as Malik Khan, an ex-soldier on a mission to rescue his two young children Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada) when the world comes under attack from an extraterrestrial invasion that is made more terrifying by the fact that the aliens come in the form of parasitic microorganisms that first infect insects, then move on to tackle humans.
Encounter begins by immediately establishing the seriousness of the extraterrestrial threat. Before the title sequence even hits the screen, we see the aliens arrive on Earth, attack insects and then quickly explode in numbers. Pearce shoots this sequence with a detail that is simple to follow yet sinister and creepy. So much so that the subsequent shots of insects will make your skin crawl.
The action ratchets up further when Malik’s ex-wife Piya (Janina Gavankar), who doesn’t see the rescue in quite the same light, informs the authorities that her children have been kidnapped. Special agents Shepard (Rory Cochrane) and Hattie (Octavia Spencer) are put on the case and set off in pursuit across the mountains and deserts of California and Nevada.
At this early stage of the film, it is a blast, successfully towing the line between a riveting sci-fi drama and a road-trip movie.
Ahmed commands the screen instantly, giving Malik a toughness and intensity that emerge gradually as the story progresses. The young actors who play his sons are just as impressive, but for very different reasons. It won’t take long for audiences to be charmed by Geddada, who brings a much needed levity and heart to the film. Chauhan becomes more confident as time goes on, displaying an impressive maturity and strength of character. Pearce gives Malik, Jay and Bobby the space to build a genuinely touching connection.
“Ahmed commands the screen, giving Malik a toughness and intensity as the story progresses”
With all this going on amid the beauty and desolation of the Californian mountains, it is impossible not to be drawn into the story. Barton’s economical and believable script propels the film forwards, while providing just enough backstory on the alien attack to keep audiences intrigued. The soundtrack, too, subtly makes the alien creatures feel present and menacing, without ever allowing the sound of their advancement to get in the way of the scene-building and storytelling.
Then, just when Encounter is really getting under way, Pearce hits us with a seismic shift in direction. While potentially a deliberate ploy to surprise the audience and keep us engaged, it doesn’t quite work. Instead, it disrupts what was building into a beautiful and unnervingly atmospheric experience and throws us for a loop. For a good 10 minutes after this turn, it feels as if the story is thrashing around. It is unnerving to say the least.
Despite this unexpected shift in perspective, the narrative isn’t entirely derailed. It soon finds its footing again, and Ahmed’s continually powerful performance ensures that Encounter remains intriguing all the way to its finale. Chauhan, alongside him, does a great job at keeping the intensity high.
On the other hand, anyone who was enjoying the sci-fi-cum-road-trip experience may find themselves less invested in the more intimate and psychological character study that Encounter becomes. Ultimately, by the time the credits roll, it feels like two separate movies that have been jammed together to form an uneven psychological sci-fi thriller that, while good, could have been so much more.

More on these topics: More

By Alexandra Martiniuk and Joseph Freeman
Simone Rotella
CYBERBULLYING was already a problem before the covid-19 pandemic hit. In Australia, for example, one in five young people reported in 2017 that they had been socially excluded, threatened or abused online, and the same proportion said they had participated in cyberbullying themselves. Then lockdowns and work-from-home orders came into force, meaning even more time was spent online.
Yet when it comes to cyberbullying, the pandemic has had a different effect than you might expect. Although we have been online more, some studies show that cyberbullying has decreased. The reasons behind this could tell us how to better tackle this problem once we emerge from the pandemic.
Unlike in-person bullying, cyberbullying can occur 24/7 and has a stronger association with suicidal ideation. We know that teenagers already spend a lot of time online, and that is increasing. A survey of people aged 10 to 18 in 11 European countries during the 2020 spring lockdowns found that nearly half of them felt they were experiencing “online overuse”. They were online for 6.5 hours per weekday on average, and around half of that time was related to school. In 2018, the comparable number was 2.7 hours per day.Advertisement
Previously, more time online had been linked with an increased chance of participating in cyberbullying. Studies have also shown that stress and anxiety have increased during the pandemic, both of which can drive increases in anger and cyberbullying.
Yet this phenomenon has actually decreased during the pandemic. One study looked at school cyberbullying in the US using Google search data. Trends in the search term “cyberbullying” have previously matched up with actual survey data about it. This study found that searches for both “cyberbullying” and “bullying” dropped by 30 to 40 per cent relative to historical norms after US schools adopted remote learning.
Another study involving South Korean schoolchildren found that the proportion of school-aged children that were either cyberbullying or being cyberbullied decreased from 27 per cent in 2019 to 23 per cent in 2020.
What’s going on? One reason for the decline is that in-person interactions can fuel both online and in-person bullying. Bullying tends to start in unstructured time, which doesn’t exist in the same way in online schooling. This suggests if we focus prevention efforts on unstructured time, it is likely we will stop both traditional bullying and cyberbullying.
Bullying rates aren’t fixed. When children feel nurtured and socially and emotionally safe, they bully less. During the pandemic, young people have spent more time at home with their parent or carer. For some, this has probably provided feelings of safety – a positive effect well known to occur in times of disaster or crisis.
Positive relationships also help reduce bullying. While some families have had interpersonal conflicts during the crisis, most households worldwide have reported increased cohesion and positive bonding between family members. Studies have shown that children reflected positively about spending more time with family. Keeping these positive relationships strong may also help prevent bullying in the future.
Unstructured play is key to the development of self-esteem, self-determination and the ability to self-regulate – all vital parts of emotional development that help prevent children bullying and protect them from being bullied.
The answer isn’t to get rid of unstructured time. But by making it a more nurturing environment backed up by positive relationships, the reduction in cyberbullying seen during the pandemic may stick around for some time.
Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123 (samaritans.org). Visit bit.ly/SuicideHelplines for hotlines and websites for other countries

More on these topics: More