Study finds most smart people born in this month

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A lot of people don’t take horoscope quizzes very seriously, and many laugh at the idea of certain people born at a certain time will be more superior than others. But here’s what the science says.

Published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a study named 'School Starting Age and Cognitive Development' looked at more than 1.2 million students aged between six to 15 in the US and concluded that those who were born in September perform better academically.

The reason is simple. Those children are the oldest in their year group at school.

By controlling other possible socio-economic factors such as a parent’s education, ethnicity and affluence, the study found that students who have their birthdays in September have a higher yearly score than their peers who were born in August, that is, the youngest ones in the year group.

September-born children also have a better chance to get into a good university and are less likely to be involved in juvenile crimes, according to the study.

Another study published by IFLScience also confirmed the myth that left-handed individuals are usually smarter.

According to the study, hand preference is a manifestation of brain function. Lefties in general exhibit a more developed right brain hemisphere, which is specialised for processes such as spatial reasoning and the ability to rotate mental representations of objects.

Left-handers also tend to have larger bundles of nerve cells that connect the two hemispheres of the brain, giving left-handers a superior ability to process information.