WHY WOMEN TALK MORE THAN MEN _ Previous research has shown that women talk almost three times as much as men. In fact, an average woman notches up to 20,000 words in a day, which is about 13,000 more than the average man. In addition, women generally speak more quickly and devote more brainpower to speaking. Yet before now, researchers haven't been able to biologically explain why this is the case.

... A protein gene called FOXP2 appears to be essential for the production of speech. And guess what? In a small study on children the girls were found to have 30 percent more FOXP2 protein in their brains.