In Brief

By Lisa McLaughlin

NIGHTMARE Turns out youngsters have reason to fear the dark. Researchers in Europe have found that babies born at night are at greater risk of early death. Studying low-risk births, they learned that infants born between 9 p.m. and 6:59 a.m. were almost twice as likely to die in the first few weeks of life as babies born during the day. A likely cause: hospital-staff fatigue during night shifts.

GENDER INEQUALITY By age 4 1/2, boys usually display better spatial skills and reasoning than girls of the same age--skills that are used later in life to do math and read maps. Researchers have long believed this difference is largely biological. But recent studies have shown that while biology does play a role, the nurture factor cannot be discounted. In daily play girls aren't encouraged as much as boys to engage in such spatially oriented activities as playing with blocks and puzzles.

HIS BIOLOGICAL CLOCK Despite disturbing evidence to the contrary (i.e., Larry King, Tony Randall), older men cannot father babies as easily as they might think. Scientists have discovered that male fertility--much like female--declines with age. The older a man is, the longer it takes his partner to conceive, irrespective of her age. The likelihood of a man impregnating a woman in a year of trying decreases 3% for every year after his 24th birthday.

--By Lisa McLaughlin