If you’ve always agreed with every stand-up comic that says women talk more than men, you’re right and it’s because of science.

According to Science World Report, the average woman says about 20,000 words a day, which is almost 3x what the average man says at about 7,000. Women also talk faster than men and devote more of their brain power to talking than guys do.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have figured out why.

There’s a protein in the brain called FOXP2 that’s important in the formation of speech. Rats have it too, it’s what allows them to make noises. Except that male rats make twice as much noise as females, which is the opposite of humans.

When the scientists looked at rat brains, they found that male rats had twice as much FOXP2 as females. Next, they looked at human brains and found women have about 30% more FOXP2 than men do.