In a story sure to not surprise many women:

Men are more likely than women to develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI), with and without memory problems, researchers found.

Women have a higher rate of dementia but men, it seems, cannot "tolerate deficits as well as women," says the study.  I suppose we have less cognitive capacity to draw on.  The deficits for men, the story goes on to point out somewhat painfully, "are fatal."

Sheesh.  Women go nuts at a greater rate then men, but if we go -- we go fast. 

I'm doomed.

Bonus Post -- Women Better Than Men, in Buying Cars

Just stumbled across this Time story that says women are better than men when it comes to major purchases, particularly cars.  Had to pass it along.

Catch-All Wednesday

Rather than dip deep into some scholarly research, instead today I'll throw at you a mix of stories out there in the Interwebs that touch in some way on what people know (er, or don't know) about various topics.

• Gen Xers know the flu, or so says this story.  This is part of the Study of American Youth, a gigantic set of data collected annually.

• A bit of a stretch, but a survey about commercial kitchens and how little they know about first aid.

• An even greater stretch, but perhaps my first time to write about Romania, people there don't really understand the term "lobbying," which I find to be an advantage for them.

And there ya go.  And here I go, off to grade a million papers instead of messing with a blog.

Watch Colbert & Stewart. Learn Science Stuff

I had a bit of fun with the headline, but this study essentially finds that attention to The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, those two Comedy Central programs, goes "hand-in-hand" with knowledge about science and the environment.

That's the lede.  Now let's get into specifics.

The theoretical argument is the two programs are "gateway drugs" to other kinds of knowledge.  Comedy programs reduce the "entry costs" to understanding complex topics like science and the environment, thus lead to greater exposure to such topics in other media.  Unfortunately, the study is a single cross-sectional survey, so arguing causality here is impossible, a problem the authors readily note.  But they do attempt to statistically control for other explanatory factors.  How well this works (are science folks more likely to watch such programs in the first place?) is a matter of some debate, though the authors say they are reasonably confident that, for less educated respondents, "the causal arrow runs from satirical news exposure to science and environmental awareness."

It's a compelling argument, one of many emerging in this kind of research.

What People Know ... About Germs?

According to this press release, moms and moms-to-be don't know as much as they should about germs.

No, not politicians.  Germs.  While similar, germs tend to not be bipedal and smile quite so much.  The press release discusses a survey about what people know about germs and why it matters.  The majority of moms got a "D" for their knowledge, which if they're like me they follow the three-second rule -- if you scoop something off the floor in three seconds or less, no germs got on it.  They're slow, those germs.

According to the survey:

According to the survey, only about half of those surveyed (49% of new moms and 51% of expectant moms) correctly answered that germ hot spots should be disinfected at least once daily. And only about a third (32% of new moms and 35% of expectant moms) was aware that the changing table is the nursery's number one germ hotspot. 

How someone could not know a changing table is germ central is beyond me.

Mormonism is the new Catholicism

Instead of reading here, see my column at Like The Dew.

MLK

It's Martin Luther King Day, a holiday, and I thought I'd invest a minute or two exploring what people know about MLK.  Here's my favorite from 2007:

In a recent survey of college students on U.S. civic literacy, more than 81 percent knew that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was expressing hope for "racial justice and brotherhood" in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.

That's the good news.

Most of the rest surveyed thought King was advocating the abolition of slavery.

Oops.  Not that he wouldn't have advocated the abolition of slavery, if it still existed at that time in the U.S., but still, ya gotta wonder.

Beyond knowledge, we can also look at what people think about King.  One good source is this 1999 poll that asked about the greatest people this past century.  King finishes just behind Mother Teresa in the "admire most" score.  As an aside, Bill Clinton wins in the "do not admire" contest -- in a landslide.  A distant second is, um, Billy Graham? 

Of course King's name comes up in a host of other ways, from the controversy over having a holiday in his honor to standard survey questions asking whether King's dream is alive today.  There are too many of those to touch on here, especially when I should be prepping for tomorrow's classes.