Lab notes: attentive fathers, brainy genes, and faulty fitness trackers – that's science

Hello. Are you sitting comfortably? And are you paying attention? If so, what are you pay attention to? If you happen to be a dad, and have young children, a US study suggests fathers are more likely to be more attentive to their female toddler than a son, 60% more in fact, spending time talking about feelings, singing and whistling, while interaction with boys is more likely to be rough-and-tumble play and used more "achievement-related" language, including words such as "proud", "win" or "best". What effect that can have later in life? That is unknown, but is that why people use the phrase "daddy's girl"? Perhaps we need to be brainier to understand these gender influences. Fortunately, science might help, with the identification of 40 genes that shed new light on the biology of intelligence. The genes provide instructions for the building of healthy neurons, the paths they take through the 3lb lump of tissue, and the construction of hundreds of trillions of synapses that connect them. That doesn't make you a genius though, but if you want a healthy mind, a healthy body can certainly help. However, if you do regular exercise and want to measure how many calories you burn, don't rely on fitness trackers, which are revealed to show a wide margin of error on calories consumed, but are far more accurate when monitoring heartbeat. Finally, fitness fanatics aren't the only things on the move. Scientists say an extra layer of tectonic plates have been discovered within Earth's mantle, which could explain a mysterious series of earthquakes in the Pacific. An finally another big and moving story from below the oceans, explaining why some species of whales, such as the blue whale, became so large. Research suggests that it was driven by changes in the distribution of their food in the ocean rather than falling water temperatures.