A Smarty Pants Has Better Sperm: Study

...but their brothers and sisters get better grades

(NEWSER) - Firstborn kids are generally more intelligent than their brothers and sisters, but younger siblings do better in school and are more outgoing, according to a new study. Previous birth-order research looked at children in isolation—e.g., how many presidents are firstborns?—but the new study examined 90 pairs of siblings in high school. Researchers found that while the first -borns scored better on tests, their siblings had better grade point averages. More»

Children born to older dads fare worse on memory, learning tests, study finds

(NEWSER) - Children born to older dads tend to do worse on memory, learning and concentration tests than babies of older moms, researchers have found, reports the BBC. Scientists speculate that the poorer performance may be linked to damaging sperm mutations over time that affect babies who are conceived later in life. The study is one of several beginning to unravel the effects that older fathers have on offspring. More»

(NEWSER) - Watching bears eat spiders on TV is fun, but do nature shows help restore our lost link with the natural world? Studies show that screen images of the great outdoors help workers relax and think clearly; an actual window onto leafy environs helps them destress even faster. "But what exactly is being restored by such immediate connection with nature?" writes Wray Herbert in Newsweek. "Or, put another way, what are we missing without these experiences?" More»

ZQFMGB not included

(NEWSER) - Sure, Bart Simpson could fake it at Scrabble—but for those of us playing against a wit sharper than Homer's, here are some gems Mental Floss magazine dug up that actually mean something:

• Cwm: A valley created by glacial shifts.
• Adz: An axe-like woodworking tool.
• Xu: The currency of Vietnam.

Researchers in field of memory call it a breakthrough

(NEWSER) - Psychological research has long supported the conclusion that training on cognitive tasks doesn’t result in intelligence gains that transfer to other tasks—ie, memorizing long strings of numbers doesn’t help learning long strings of letters. But researchers say they've made a long-sought breakthrough that could lead to better treatments for learning disorders and memory loss, Scientific American reports. More»