A new study by the Millennial Institute of Advanced Research on 2150 newborn babies in Minnesota has found a significant increase in IQ scores of babies forced to listen to old ABBA songs at least two hours a day.

“This is a surprising result,” notes chief scientist Riley Ruster, “as ABBA tunes were actually tested on the babies by mistake. We intended to test Bach on them but the research assistant misread our specification of `Bach’ for `ABBA.’ By this serendipitous route we have achieved a remarkable breakthrough.”

The Institute mailed 2150 copies of Bang-A-Boomerang, Dame! Dame! Dame!, and Dancing Queen to expectant mothers in 14 Minnesota counties, with instructions on how and when to play the music to their babies.

IQ tests were later administered to the infants with truly startling results.

Because none of the babies could yet read, researchers read the IQ questions aloud to the babies, who signaled their answers via a variety of infantile methods, such as spitting, gurgling, slobbering, food-throwing, and in one case, defecating.

“Virtually all infants scored above average on the tests,” says Ruster, “with a high correlation between tolerance for ABBA and intelligence being found consistently. Clearly, the famous Swedish group stimulates brain growth in virtually all newborns. Now we need to find out what happens if we blast Bach at the little rug rats.”