If you’re ever looking for a regular source of high-quality writing on a variety of fascinating topics, the monthly Harper’s Magazine is hard to beat.

In addition to the (almost universally) fabulous essays, Harper’s also has two intriguing features that always catch my eye. The first, Harper’s Index, contains a list of sometimes amusing, often ghastly, but always engrossing facts and figures compiled from a wide variety of sources. Here are some particularly worrying numbers straight from the March 2008 issue.

Portion of US GDP that is accounted for by consumer spending: 7/10
Proportion of China’s GDP: 1/3

Chance that a British man admits to fantasizing about his favorite sports team during sex: 1 in 9

Percentage of full-time university faculty in 1992 who taught less than four hours per week: 15
Percentage today: 30

The second feature, which is always to be found on the very last page of the magazine, is called Features. It contains, in condensed prose form, a summary of the latest and greatest (or, as you’ll see below, perhaps not so great) findings from scientific research.

Here’s the first paragraph from the same March 2008 issue.

Japanese scientists unveiled a robot that plays the violin, a robot that solves Rubik’s Cubes, a robot that recognizes itself in a mirror, a robot snowplow that eats snow and excretes ice bricks, a robot exoskeleton that can be worn by elderly farmers, and a robot that walks at the command of a monkey on a treadmill in North Carolina. German primatologists found that male Barbary macaques thrust more vigorously during sex if their female partners shout loudly, and that it is almost impossible for the male macaques to climax if the females do not shout. [Perhaps it might help if the British ones thought about their favorite sports teams?] An American gynecologist speculated that humans have bigger penises than apes because humans’ large brains required the development of large vaginas, which in turn demanded large penises. Zoologists suggested that apes and humans share an ancestor who laughed. Researchers at Eotvos Lorand University programmed computers to translate the various barks of Hungarian sheepdogs into the words “alone,” “ball,” “fight,” “play,” “stranger,” and “walk.” Scientists taught dolphins to sing the theme song from Batman.

Who ever said that non-scientific publications (although, I admit, this highfalutin’ literary magazine isn’t exactly your everyday, mainstream magazine) don’t understand science? And who would have ever thought that science could sound so fun? I’m clearly in the wrong research area…