My picks from ScienceDaily

Here's one for bloggers to rip apart: Why Your Boss Is White, Middle-class And A Show-off:

The way male managers power dress, posture and exercise power is due to humans' evolutionary biology, according to research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

Girls Are Happier Than Boys At Primary School, Study Shows:

Just over one quarter (26 per cent) of primary seven boys are completely happy coming to school, compared with 44 per cent of girls, according to a survey carried out by Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster.

American Culture Derails Girl Math Whizzes, Study Finds:

A culture of neglect and, at some age levels, outright social ostracism, is derailing a generation of students, especially girls, deemed the very best in mathematics, according to a new study.

Babies And Beethoven: Infants Can Tell Happy Songs From Sad:

A new study shows that 5-month-old babies can distinguish an upbeat tune, such as "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, from a lineup of gloomier compositions.

Religiosity Curbs Teen Marijuana Use By Half, National Study Finds:

While many congregations of different faiths preach against drug abuse, it has been unclear whether a youth's religious involvement has any effect on his risk of drug abuse.

One Hour Of Moderate Daily Exercise Insufficient To Curb Childhood Obesity, Experts Argue:

Researchers from the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, UK, have carried out research that suggests the one hour of moderate exercise a day recommended to children from health experts may not be enough to tackle the rising problem of childhood obesity.

'Caffeine Receptor' Solved: Structure Of Important Neurological Receptor Defined:

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have determined the structure of an adenosine receptor that plays a critical role in a number of important physiological processes including pain, breathing, and heart function. The findings could lead to the development of a new class of therapeutics for treating numerous neurological disorders, including Parkinson's and Huntington disease.

Sound Is An Integral Part Of Products, Industrial Designer Says:

Does coffee taste better when your coffee machine produces a particular sound? According to industrial designer Elif Ãzcan Vieira the sound a product makes is an integral part of that product.

Just A Numbers Game? Making Sense Of Health Statistics:

Presidential candidates use them to persuade voters, drug companies use them to sell their products, and the media spin them in all kinds of ways, but nobody - candidates, reporters, let alone health consumers - understands them.

More like this

Monarch Butterflies Help Explain Why Parasites Harm Hosts: It's a paradox that has confounded evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859: Since parasites depend on their hosts for survival, why do they harm them? A new University of Georgia and Emory…
Sine-Wave speech is a wonderful example of the importance of patterns when it comes to our sense of sound. When people first hear a sentence that's been artificially degraded, the sentence sounds like a sequence of "simultaneous whistles, or science fiction sounds." However, when people are first…
Why Animals Migrate: New Understandings: For the first time, MIT engineers and colleagues have observed the initiation of a mass gathering and subsequent migration of hundreds of millions of animals -- in this case, fish. A Venomous Tale: How Lizards Can Shed Their Tail When Predators Attack:…
Under the fold.... Marine Debris Will Likely Worsen In The 21st Century: Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. Receptor Activation Protects Retina From…

And the bloggers, of course, won't have any interest in a study by BYU researchers claiming that religion protects kids from drug use. Uh huh. :)

And your point would be....?

By DrugMonkey (not verified) on 14 Oct 2008 #permalink

I've told you before, DM. It's not that simple. That's always my point.

In children in particular, religion is a reflection of their social situation, not the other way around. The study actually shows this, in that living in a religious community doesn't confer the same advantage.

That means that the highly religious kids are the ones in stable social situations. They're staying in line with the beliefs of their parents. The non-religious kids are going to be a mix of kids in stable non-religious social settings and kids who are disconnected from their parents in many ways, including religion.

We already know that a stable social situation confers some protection on kids. What about this study suggests that religion adds anything to that?

That it comes from Bring 'Em Young just amuses me.