Parents everywhere will want to point this out to their offspring (I certainly am!). A series of studies of high-achievers has borne out what some of us have been saying to our children all along: it's not how bright you are, it's whether you stick to the task. Perseverance is what it's all about. The studies aren't ground-breaking -- we've had reason to believe this before now (see my article on innate talent) -- but apart from confirming previous studies, the research is also interesting because the researcher has developed what she calls a "grit scale", which you can use to rate yourself (get your children to do their own themselves, it'll have much more impact that way!) -- see the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

And New York Times has a fascinating magazine article on the subject of animal personality, which apparently is now a field of study! And fair enough too. Any dog and cat owner will not, of course, have any problem with the idea of non-human animals having personalities, but some people might be thrown by the idea of administering personality tests to giant octopi. However, that's nothing to the idea that fruit flies have personalities! But, hey, why not? Although it does make me feel a little bad about my days as a graduate student when I used to feed fruit flies to my experimental subjects (jumping spiders).