Gene

Brain’s sex differences are subtle and contradictory, large MRI study finds:

But even apparently null results, as in the current study, are useful, Sanchís Segura says, “because it’s important to talk about when men and women are similar” in a field that is biased toward finding bias. For example, the way brain activation mapped onto behavior was largely the same for men and women, the new study found.
“You can prove that a difference exists, but you cannot prove that a difference doesn’t exist,” she says. “You can put into PubMed, ‘sex differences,’ and you will have thousands of papers, but what if I want to look for the absence of differences? We don’t even have a word.”

No evidence for ‘witches’ marks’ claims at old English buildings, historian says:

Over the years, English Heritage and Historic England have claimed to have identified large numbers of “witches’ marks” or “ritual protection symbols” on the walls of historic buildings, including medieval churches and houses.
Now a leading architectural historian has said there is “absolutely no evidence” that these marks have anything to do with witches or any “mystical meanings”.
Daisy wheels, or hexafoils, are among symbols that are no more than the marks of stonemasons who worked on those buildings, according to Jennifer Alexander, a professor of architectural history at Warwick University and author of a new study.

What Do You Do with a Phantom Sailor Suit? A New Note with Some "New" Old Evidence on Cornell Woolrich, the Blackton Sisters and the Infamous Story of the Sex Diary

I had some vague knowledge of Woolrich, but pretty much only as 'er, wrote noir novels in the 30s or thereabouts? some of them became movies???'

I'm also slightly sceptical of the 'unconsummated marriage' alternative narrative simply because if you realised you had made A Dreadful Mistake this was probably an easy out via annulment? (will concede that I have personally written scholarly article deconstructing a famous allegedly non-consummated marriage narrative in the light of the British divorce laws of the early C20th)

But the whole 'create sensationalist account on basis of I think this happened/I made it all up' is not unfamiliar to moi.

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1,000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students.

This would be rather startling to the ladies who had studied as home students, at Somerville, Lady Margaret Hall, St Hugh's and St Hilda's, before women were admitted to Oxford degrees which was what actually happened in 1920 -

- and those ladies who were still around were there to collect the degrees they were now entitled to.

I am so hoping that this is a blurb produced either by AI or by some intern at the publishers who has not actually read the book but has gathered that it is about women going to Oxford in 1920?

Because if the book is written in some apprehension that there were No Female Students among the dreaming spires before 1920 I hope the author is visited in her sleep by the shades of all, or at least some of, the women who were, who included some notoriously stroppy and acerbic characters.

This is even more egregious than the historical romance which posited a daughter of an Oxford prof at a date of obligatory celibacy for College fellows, which is a bit niche perhaps, but Women's Struggle for Education is surely well-documented???

(Come on down, Vera Brittain, The Women at Oxford: a fragment of history)

In further Did Not Do The Research, or at least have a Brit-Picker, JD Robb Stolen in Death has significant plot around theft of Important Jewels - from the Tate in London, wtf, surely you meant the V&A....

So, it looks probable that I am coming up to be the next person to suggest A Book for the in-person reading group.

And I recently had a flash of inspiration, why not something by Naomi Mitchison?

Except that when I come to Do The Research, hardly anything is at present actually in print, chiz chiz chiz.

I really don't think I can moot The Corn King and the Spring Queen which is Very Long.

We're doing a memoir for the meeting next week so perhaps not Among You Taking Notes.

Otherwise it's The Blood of the Martyrs, about the early Christians, not perhaps as good as the earlier Classical Antiquity novels, or Travel Light, which is not my own favourite among her fantasy works.

I really fancied blowing their minds with Memoirs of a Spacewoman but although there is a Kindle edition of the Italian translation, if you want to read it in English secondhand copies come pricey.

(INFAMY!!!)

So I have to think of something else.

To switch to an entirely different track, maybe Rosamond Lehmann, Dusty Answer, the archetypal Sad Girl Novel?

Hell, maybe I should go for Cold Comfort Farm.