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Ward Schumaker

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A Doll Bailout? Da

First it was wobbly banks. Now it's wobbly dolls. Russia's latest candidate for a government bailout: its matryoshka dolls, the chubby, nesting figures that have been scooped up by generations of souvenir hunters since first appearing in 1890. (Matryoshka is the diminutive of an old Russian female name.)

Slumping exports and sales to tourists have hurt the makers of the matryoshki and other Russian handicrafts. The Moscow Times reports that the country's largest maker of the handpainted dolls—the Khokhloma Painting Plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region—recently halved salaries after a 40% revenue slump. All told, some 240 Russian enterprises, employing 30,000 people, are involved in making the dolls and other traditional pieces.

On Mar. 13 the government announced it will come to the rescue of the industry—by ordering more than $28 million worth of matryoshka dolls, lacquer boxes, and wooden dishes and spoons. The Kremlin and its ministries plan to use them as official state gifts. With matryoshki selling for about $15 a set, it could be years before enough visiting dignitaries pass through to take all those dolls home.

—By Jason Bush in Moscow, Edited by Deborah Stead

How a Doodle Serves Your Noodle

Often viewed as a sign of a wandering mind, doodling may actually help us absorb information. In a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Jackie Andrade at Britain's University of Plymouth played a rambling voice-mail message to 40 people, half of whom were given shapes to fill in as they listened. The result: The doodlers recalled 29% more of the message than those who just listened. Andrade says idle scribbling uses just enough cognitive bandwidth to prevent daydreaming, so it may help us stay focused. One boardroom doodler, retiring GM (GM) Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz, says he isn't surprised by the finding. "I can look at old sketches done in meetings 40 years ago," he says, "and experience sudden recall of the room, the table, the voices."

—By Ellen Gibson, Edited by Deborah Stead