Skullduggery

Today's BBC Science website headlines the revelation that anthropologists from Oxford University have examined 55 human skulls from various parts of the world and concluded that we in the North have bigger brains than those who hail from the South.

According to lead author Eiluned Pearce: "We found a positive relationship between absolute latitude ... and cranial capacity" which suggests that a few tens of thousands of years peering through the gloom of long winters and brief springs has enlarged northern brains in the same sort of way that a series of gym sessions is likely to increase the size of one's biceps/pectorals/deltoids/etc.

The Royal Society's Biology Letters journal goes on to say that this hasn't necessarily made Northerners more intelligent, however, it is now over 200 years since Canon Sydney Smith, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral (born in Woodford, Essex but obviously in possession of something akin to a Big Northern Brain) pre-empted the team's doubts on the matter by saying:
"Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does, he will tell you. If he does not, why humiliate him?".

Of course, it's now only natural modesty which prevents me speculating as to whether or not next week's news might confirm the Pope's religion or enlighten us on what bears do in the woods....