neverwhere

I’m sick of winter. More specifically, of nasty snow-sleet-spitting weather. If it were just cold and dreary that would be one thing. But wet and gross and slippery mixed with idiot drivers and boots with broken zippers, that’s something else entirely.

My family has no valid explanation as to why they never moved to Hawaii so I could use ‘family’ as an excuse to live there instead of the anchor that keeps me here.

Was one of the worst ideas I’ve had in quite a while.

Pregnancy, motherhood do not generate cognitive lapses, study says

A new Australian study busts the “baby brain” myth and finds that pregnancy and motherhood do not cause persistent cognitive deterioration, BBC News reports.

For the study—which was published in the February edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry—researchers analyzed data collected from 1,241 women who took memory tests in 1999, 2003 and 2007. The study found that test scores remained unchanged before and after pregnancy, with results remaining consistent regardless of whether a woman became a mother.

According to the authors, the study’s results challenge the view that “mothers are anything other than the intellectual peers of their contemporaries,” BBC News reports. Commenting on the findings, one midwife noted that physical and emotional stress—for both men and women—may lead to tiredness, which subsequently may cause concentration loss and lapses in cognitive function.

—Christensen et al., British Journal of Psychiatry, February 2010 [subscription required];BBC News, 2/3