stereotypes

[Janet Mertz]

>I would also assert that anyone who rejects/accepts a paper for 
>publication on the basis of the sex of the first author is skating on very 
>thin ice - which is why it doesn't happen!

Sorry to say that, unfortunately, acceptance rates can be affected by the 
sex of the author, at least in math or the "hard" sciences. A few years 
ago, a study was done is which manuscripts were sent out for review where 
they differed only in the sex of the authors. Shockingly, the acceptance 
rates were significantly lower when the authors of the manuscript had 
female names!

>  Moving the story on to something more cheery - I did read somewhere that 
> students who were given a chocolate bar before an exam scored 
> higher.  But hey, who ever needed an excuse to eat chocolate!
Did people see an article last week in the New York Times reporting the 
results of a preliminary study indicating that cocoa (without the sugar and 
fat) may be good for you, inhibiting production of LDL? :-)

Janet Mertz