News Items of Interest

The Shawnee Redemption

In Kansas, ex-cons build lake cabins, weld snowmobiles—and stay out of prison. What's the matter with the rest of the country?

It’s Always Happy Hour for Several Species in Malaysian Rain Forest

German scientists have discovered that seven species of small mammals in the rain forests of western Malaysia drink fermented palm nectar on a regular basis. For several of the species, including the pen-tailed tree shrew, the nectar, which can have an alcohol content approaching that of beer, is the major food source — meaning they are chronic drinkers. . . .

The findings also suggest there must be benefits to having chronic low levels of alcohol in the bloodstream — otherwise the behavior would not have evolved.

Warning: Habits May Be Good for You

But getting people into a soap habit, it turns out, is surprisingly hard. . . .

Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through relentless advertising.

As this new science of habit has emerged, controversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods. But for activists like Dr. Curtis, this emerging research offers a type of salvation. . . .

So Dr. Curtis’s group had to create commercials that taught viewers to feel a habitual sense of unseemliness surrounding toilet use.

Their solution was ads showing mothers and children walking out of bathrooms with a glowing purple pigment on their hands that contaminated everything they touched.

The commercials, which began running in 2003, didn’t really sell soap use. Rather, they sold disgust. Soap was almost an afterthought — in one 55-second television commercial, actual soapy hand washing was shown only for 4 seconds. But the message was clear: The toilet cues worries of contamination, and that disgust, in turn, cues soap.