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 […]

Girls in books, statistically

Emily St. John Mandel [pictured here], a former girl, who writes books, analyzed data about the many of the characters who are specifically identified as a “girl” in the title of a book. Mandel wrote up her findings for the FiveThirtyEight web site: “The Gone Girl With The Dragon Tattoo On The Train — Why are there so many books with “girl” in […]

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 […]

Rob Lowe’s Research on Men’s Ratings of Sexual Attractiveness of Adolescent Girls in Bulgaria

Rob Lowe and two colleagues write about their research on men’s ratings of the sexual attractiveness of adolescent girls in Bulgaria. Their study is: “Heterosexual Men’s Ratings of Sexual Attractiveness of Adolescent Girls: A Cross-Cultural Analysis,” Paul Bennett , Rob Lowe, and Hristina Petrova, Archives of Sexual Behavior, November 2015, Volume 44, Issue 8, pp. 2201-2206. The […]