It's semi-official! Men are stupider than women

Well, kind of.

A new study in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal, where academics traditionally let their hair down, looked at the difference between the sexes when it came to idiotic behaviour.

Researchers from the north-east of England noted that men are already well known to be much more likely to engage in risk-seeking behaviour and be admitted to A&E as a result.

But in an effort to explore "male idiot theory" (MIT), they examined the verified winners of the Darwin Awards, given to people who die in particularly, sometimes spectacularly, stupid ways and do humanity a favour by removing themselves from the gene pool.

One particularly deserving winner was a would-be terrorist who opened his own letter bomb after it was returned to him when he didn't buy enough stamps.

According to MIT many of the differences in risk seeking behaviour, emergency department admissions, and mortality may be explained by the observation that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things.

There are anecdotal data supporting MIT, but to date there has been no systematic analysis of sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour.

• Dr Dennis Lendrem, Newcastle University

Since 1995 there have been 332 verified Darwin Award winners but 14 had to be removed for involving couples (usually misguidedly-amorous ones), leaving 282 men and 36 women.

In the below graph, line H0 indicates expected percentages under the null hypothesis that males and females are equally idiotic.

The researchers said they believed MIT deserved further investigation, and "with the festive season upon us, we intend to follow up with observational field studies and an experimental study - males and females, with and without alcohol - in a semi-naturalistic Christmas party setting".

Until MIT gives us a full and satisfactory explanation of idiotic male behaviour, hospital emergency departments will continue to pick up the pieces, often literally.

The Christmas edition of the BMJ can be quite rogue, with academics last year trying to determine whether James Bond had an alcohol-induced tremor.

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