Let's hear it for singletasking

Maybe it's sweet justice for all those times we're pulled from our reading or naps by insistent calls of "Hey, Mom!" or "Watch this, Dad!"

Our middle-aged brains may actually be better at staying focused or blocking out interruptions than the brains of our quick-witted offspring. Studies at the Institute for the Future of the Mind at Oxford University show that younger people have better mental dexterity than older people -- unless they're interrupted. Then the more mature groups are better able to shut out ringing telephones and pesky instant messsaging and stick with the task at hand.

Feel free to brag about it to your teenager -- the researchers call it "faster fluid intelligence."

But that feat of cognitive gymnastics aside, no human brain is really very good at multitasking, researchers at the University of Michigan brain lab say. We just don't have the power to concentrate on two tasks at one time.

So talk on the cell or drive the car -- technology advances, but our own hard wiring stays the same.