Sometimes headlines really rub me the wrong way. This happens to be a consistent topic that always bugs me - Finger length. It's interesting in that finger length is correlated with testosterone levels and that affects all sorts of cognitive abilities - but highlighting a correlation that isn't directly linked? Its like saying that the decrease in pirates is the cause of global warming (ok..not quite... but you get the point!). Ohh... same thing with sexual orientation - I guess (I'm probably gonna get yelled at for that one though).

Here's the first story from EurekAlert:

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that sexual orientation has a real effect on how we perform mental tasks such as navigating with a map in a car but that old age does not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation and withers all men's minds alike just ahead of women's.

The University of Warwick researchers worked with the BBC to collect data from over 198,000 people aged 20-65 years (109,612 men and 88,509 women). As expected they found men outperformed women on tests such as mentally rotating objects (NB the researchers' tests used abstract objects but the skills used are also those one would use in real life to navigate with a map). They found that women outperformed men in verbal dexterity tests, and remembering the locations of objects. However for a number of tasks the University of Warwick researchers found key differences across the range of sexual orientations studied.

For instance in mental rotation (a task where men usually perform better) they found that the table of best performance to worst was:

* Heterosexual men
* Bisexual men
* Homosexual men
* Homosexual women
* Bisexual women
* Heterosexual women

In general, over the range of tasks measured, where a gender performed better in a task heterosexuals of that gender tended to perform better than non-heterosexuals. When a particular gender was poorer at a task homosexual and bisexual people tended to perform better than heterosexual members of that gender.

However age was found to discriminate on gender grounds but not sexual orientation. The study found that men's mental abilities declined faster than women's and that sexual orientation made no difference to the rate of that decline either for men or women.

And finally from ScienceDaily...

In a study to be published in the British Journal of Psychology, scientists compared the finger lengths of 75 children with their Standardised Assessment Test (SAT) scores.

They found a clear link between a child's performance in numeracy and literacy tests and the relative lengths of their index (pointing) and ring fingers.

Scientists believe that the link is caused by different levels of the hormones testosterone and oestrogen in the womb -- and the effect they have on both brain development and finger length.

"Testosterone has been argued to promote development of the areas of the brain which are often associated with spatial and mathematical skills," said Dr Mark Brosnan, Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, who led the study.

"Oestrogen is thought to do the same in the areas of the brain which are often associated with verbal ability. "Interestingly, these hormones are also thought have a say in the relative lengths of our index and ring fingers.

Read the comments on this post...

Ok... not really at home (Are they really suggesting in the picture that you can do it yourself?). There are now some relatively simple consumer devices on the market that will let your Psychiatrist wave his magic wand over your head, helping to alleviate your depressive symptoms in his office without checking you into a hospital and knocking you out. I'm curious whether they need an MRI before doing this procedure? It doesn't look like it's too precise. In any case... here's the device:

And a description from Engadget:

The devices employ a technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which sends an electromagnetic pulse two to three centimeters into the brain, stimulating prefrontal cortex and paralimbic blood flow, which in turn increases the serotonin output as well as the dopamine and norepinephrine functions. Previously, that technique required patients to go under anesthesia, but these new devices will apparently make it possible for the procedure to be done right in the psychiatrist's office, with the patient able to go home immediately afterward.

Read the comments on this post...

In vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS, a two-inch diameter, .25 inch thick disk is surgically tucked under the skin near the left collarbone, then wired upward to the vagus nerve in the neck. The battery-operated disk delivers intermittent, rhythmic pulses t

It was innocent, I simply cut and pureed some seedless watermelon, froze it in a brain gelatin mold (without gelatin), and turned out the glistening results on a platter the next day. I put it on a table in a room with bright natural lighting and took a shot with an old 4.0 mp camera. Uploaded it to my Flickr account, and whoosh, fame! A photojournalist blogger people assure me is very big, Shootist, used my photo on his entry (about something else). I am thrilled, especially a bit amused because I put little effort into it. Circumstances collided and next thing you know it's had over 660 views at Flickr and let's see where it ends up.

The watermelon brain: behold, refreshing summery bra-a-ainz.

You can get a similar mold at Neuromart.com. I bought this one at the same Exploratorium gift shop that Steve [on the road now] did.

Read the comments on this post...