Researchers at the Health Research Institute in Madrid took MRI scans of soon-to-be fathers. They compared them with brain scans of men who did not have children. What they found was that the brains of the new dads had changed. An area at the back of the brain known as the visual cortex, which is responsible for processing information about vision, had shrunk in the new dads.
State media have taken to calling President Xi Jinping “the helmsman”; at the five-yearly meeting he defended his means of steering the country. We ask how to read between his tightly prepared lines. Many of America’s firms will soon deliver disappointing profits—and there is more to blame than simple business cycles. And research suggests that parenthood causes fathers’ brains to shrink.
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