Given that there are significant measurable structural difference between male and female brains I would not at all be surprised to find out that they think differently from each other in some way. Source.

ok here is a science question thats not all heated.

Now I dont think science has an answer for this, but if so I'd really like to know. Why are different elements different?

As an example the difference between silicon and aluminum is a single proton and neutron, yet have several different properties. Why exactly does simply adding or subtracting these sub-atomic particles have such great affect on the atoms?

It partially has to do with valence electrons and energy levels. If you go down a column in the periodic table, you find elements that have fairly similar properties, ultimately the number of protons changes the number of electrons needed to balance out, which in turn dictates how the atom will react with other atoms (along with a myriad of other properties).

How those atoms bind with other atoms and with themselves will to some extent determine physical properties. Just look at the differences between graphite and diamonds. It's all carbon, just arranged differently.

E- Once you hit 'f' orbitals it gets all crazy though, and there's the occasional exception.

EE- Essentially, the baseline explanation is that atoms 'like' to have a full outer shell, whether they give up or take on extra electrons to do this, and which group they belong to in the periodic table determines how many they have to give or take to reach that ideal. Noble gases ain't give no fucks because they already have a full shell, of course.

Suprisingly, its for pretty much the reason they tell you in high school chemistry. It's all about the number of electrons. On the most basic level atoms want to fill their outer shell of electrons because this is the most energetic stable configuration for various reasons. And thus atoms will react differently depending on how man electrons they are tryig to acquire and thus with the same outershell configuration (oing down a periodic group) will react in roughly the same ways.
Beyond this generalisation you have to get into specifics of each atom and generally molecule and its reactions but this simple rule will serve you pretty well.

As far as I gathered from the article, they were making no statements about where the differences come from, or whether they're good or bad; simply that they exist and are larger than previously thought.

So, like, I dunno man. The article has a section for comments and the author of the original study that these guys are referring to made a rebuttal which these guys responded to and both parties were throwing around references like it's no tomorrow (a good thing for a scientific publication) but frankly it would take weeks to read all hundred plus references posted between the main article and comments section and then even longer to properly digest the contents all so that I can have a truly educated and informed opinion about what they're trying to say.

Or, I can say "huh, at first glance the math sounds reasonable" and come to the internet forum I hang out at and see if anyone else has more context with regards to subject matter.

ITT: come for the science discussion, stay for the freakouts.

EDIT: also, the bit about the time needed to read all those references? That's making the gigantic assumption that those references wouldn't also have their own references I'd need to read ad nauseum and at that point I might as well just get a psychology degree.

Well, with the power of sobriety, I can put it like this. Ain't nothin' but a meta-analysis of personality differences between genders. The only noteworthy thing about it is the bit at the beginning shaming other papers for bad math while representing that bad math as the state of the field as a whole, added solely to get people to read their boring, same ol' song-and-dance findings. That is dishonest, and thus bull. Not worth it. Never worth it.

That's like the first chapter in "How to write a scientific paper 101". If we removed all papers that did that you'd have maybe 3 left. You can't really get mad at people for playing up the importance of their work because that is kind of how things are done. Otherwise you don't get referenced, or even published, and then people stop giving you money.

edit:
If you're really interested (as well as anyone else) as soon as I get some free time I could put something together to explain this from a basic QM perspective all the way to a general description of condensed matter physics.

Well, not to derail or anything but seeing as this is the science sticky now..but grab your cajones, jabronis, droppin some science like a pair of pants!

World's Smallest Memory Bit Stores Data Using Just 12 Atoms.

So..I think Moore's law just got tapped on the sac pretty hard recently. What with that 4 x 1 atom wire and IBM just now.

Reading nature today and current estimate is that there are 5 to 10 times as many planets in the milky way as stars. About 2/3 of planets have an earth like planet. Which means there are fuckloads of lifeable planets probably.

And that's not even taking into account the possibility of life in conditions different to ours.