GENDER GAP EXPOSED| Men are mentally slower than women. Any woman could tell you that, but now there’s proof of a sort. Vanderbilt University researchers looking at 8,000 males and females ages 2 to 90 found females to be markedly better at timed tests and tasks. The researchers said the differences, which were particularly significant in teens and preteens, did not reflect differences in overall intelligence, but they may help explain the growing school achievement gap.| THE WASHINGTON POST
POP GOES THE DIET|Diet sodas aren’t necessarily diet helpers. A study of 1,550 people by doctors at the Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio found that 57 percent of diet soda drinkers became overweight or obese after eight years, compared with 47 percent of those who chose full-calorie beverages. Participants in the study, reported on in Prevention Healthy Woman’s Abs Guide, might have felt they were saving enough calories with diet drinks so they didn’t need to watch what they ate as closely, researchers said.
