If You Want A Boy, Eat Tons Of Cheeseburgers, I Guess

The Very Deep NY Times reports:

How much a mother eats at the time of conception may influence whether she gives birth to a boy or a girl, a new report shows.

The sex of a child may depend on a mother’s eating habits. (Paul Hilton for The New York Times)

The report, from researchers at Oxford and the University of Exeter in England, is said to be the first evidence that a child’s sex is associated with a mother’s diet. Although sex is genetically determined by whether sperm from the father supplies an X or Y chromosome, it appears that a mother’s body can favor the successful development of a male or female

You're Reading This, Aren't You

From the NY Times:

Leonard S. Riggio and wife

Leonard S. Riggio, the founder and chairman of Barnes & Noble, thinks that Steven P. Jobs is wrong, at least when it comes to the reading habits of Americans.

In January, Mr. Jobs, the chairman of Apple, declared that a new electronic book reader introduced by Amazon.com was unlikely to be a commercial success because of a fundamental problem. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is,” Mr. Jobs said. “People don’t read anymore.”

In a telephone interview last week, Mr. Riggio — who has based a long and profitable career on the proposition that people love to read — said that Mr. Jobs’s perception “is off by a lot.”

While Mr. Riggio said he could not comment on Amazon’s device, the Kindle, he said that at Barnes & Noble, “our business in general is fairly sound.” And while the book industry as a whole is “fairly flattish” now, Mr. Riggio said, “it has had periods of flattish growth in the past.”

“I’m still very optimistic,” he added.

Breaking News: Rich Kids Also Cheat on Exams

From the LA Times:

Six sophomores were expelled and more than a dozen other students faced suspensions Tuesday in a cheating scandal that has rocked Harvard-Westlake, a top-tier Los Angeles private school with a national reputation for its academics.

Administrators said students conspired to steal Spanish and history tests by distracting teachers in their classrooms. The tests were then shown to several other students before midterm exams last month, said Harvard-Westlake President Thomas Hudnut.