New ammo in the boys/girls argument about who’s better at what: math and writing

There’s new paper ammunition for all combatants in the eternal anger-and-joy-filled war to explain why more men than women officially keep on studying mathematics. The new paper that provides—that is itself—the ammunition is: “Girls’ Comparative Advantage in Reading Can Largely Explain the Gender Gap in Math-Related Fields,” Thomas Breda and Clotilde Napp, Proceedings of the […]

How much saliva does a five-year-old kid produce? (podcast #92)

How do you measure how much saliva a five-year-old kid produces in a day? A Japanese study describes one approach, and we go with that flow (to an extent), in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams discusses a published saliva-filled study, with dramatic readings from Nicole Sharp, creator of FYFD, the internet’s most popular […]

Mucking Around in Class

Martino [pictured here] mucks around, in this study: “Mucking Around in Class, Giving Crap, and Acting Cool: Adolescent Boys Enacting Masculinities at School,” Wayne Martino, Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation, Vol. 25, No. 2 (2000), pp. 102-112. The author, at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, explains: “I use a Foucauldian […]