Field studies with skateboarders show that a hot girl turns men into idiots: Alternately, a lot of what you've always thought you knew about testosterone is probably right. Some Australians recruited male skateboarders, and asked them to perform tricks. After a break, they were invited back, and asked to perform again, "either for the same male experimenter or for an attractive 18-year-old female experimenter who was blind to hypotheses." With the attractive teen around, testosterone levels shot up, and the boarders increased their tendency to take risks. Some of those paid off with smooth landings, but the number of cases where they experienced crash landings did, as well. "These results suggest that men use physical risk taking as a sexual display strategy," the authors deadpanned.

The downside is that the response to hot girls makes all females think men are idiots: Apparently, all it takes for a woman to get annoyed at men in general is to think about them subjecting a woman to catcalls. In psych-speak, said women "experienced greater negative intergroup emotions and motivations towards the outgroup of men after overhearing the cat-call remark." So, even if you're well behaved, you may not escape the stigma of being the same sex as an idiot.

Weird Science publishing, round II: Last time we covered this ground, we'd mentioned how quirks in the PNAS review system let someone publish a hypothesis that was already obviously incorrect, based on data we've had for years. This past week, an article in Nature News made me aware of an entire journal that has dedicated itself to publishing crank material: Medical Hypotheses. Its founder, a nonscientist, claimed that "The history of science has repeatedly shown that when hypotheses are proposed it is impossible to predict which will turn out to be revolutionary and which ridiculous," while its current editor has said he "tries to favor unfashionable and unpopular views."

Of course, a hypothesis that's inconsistent with data we already have does nobody any good and, in the field of medicine, could be downright dangerous. Fortunately, peer review should catch many of these ideas—except that Medical Hypotheses has refused to implement peer review. Issues came to a head when the journal published articles from HIV/AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg; the ensuing outcry caused publisher Elsevier to put together a panel of experts that eventually withdrew the papers. Now, Elsevier is demanding that everything get peer reviewed, the editor is refusing, and the dispute may not end until the editor's contract runs out.

Disappointed, but not depressed: The competition for places in undergrad institutions has gotten incredibly fierce in recent years, to the extent that I doubt I could manage to get in to the place that awarded me a degree. Undoubtedly, that's produced a population of students that haven't ended up with the sort of college achievements they expected—isn't that just a bit depressing? Apparently not. "Results indicate almost no long-term emotional costs of 'shooting for the stars' rather than planning for the probable, once educational attainment is taken into account." The attainment issue is significant—if you bomb out entirely, you're still going to be at a greater risk for depression.

Why the Crips might want to consider a group coverage plan: Apparently, having health insurance correlates with better survival following gunshot wounds. Lest you think it's a matter of the insurance cards deflecting bullets, the authors controlled for the severity of the wounds, and the benefit of insurance remained. "These findings underscore the need for improvement in social determinants of health, like insurance coverage, among people affected by violent trauma," said one of the authors.