Brief thoughts on what's going on online

• Very young children learn better from photos. When they are read to from a picture book describing how to make a rattle, 18-months-old do better at trying to make the rattle when the book had realistic photos compared to line drawings. I've always found instructions that use photos very difficult to follow because it's hard to highlight the relevant portion of the photo. But apparently at a very young age, children don't understand the relationship between a drawing and a real object.
• Left-handers have faster connections between brain hemispheres. I knew it! Left-handers are superior! But why don't we rule the world? Maybe because we're forced to use right-handed scissors and it's harder for us to open jars.
• A woman's age when she gets her period affects her kids. Her children will be taller as kids, but more likely to be obese. Fortunately, kids who are tall when young are likely to earn more as grown-ups compared to short kids.

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• This isn't really cognitive psychology news, but it's still fascinating: Bears lose much less muscle mass during hibernation than humans during bedrest. Ever wonder why bears seem to have no trouble recovering from that long winter hibernation? Apparently they're just built for it. Bears lose just 10 percent of their muscles over an entire winter. Meanwhile, astronauts lose 9 to 11 percent of their strength in a 17-day spaceflight. After an 8-week hospital stay I could barely walk, while bears have no problem resuming an active lifestyle after a 110-day sleep.
• Smart people aren't any richer than stupid people. Of course, if you're rich, how stupid could you really be? The larger point is that people who do well on IQ tests aren't necessarily better at managing their money. There is a correlation between IQ and income, just not IQ and wealth.