Stubble is Sexy.
A study in Australia has investigated how much of a man's socio-sexual standing, as perceived by woman and other men, is based around their facial hair.
Photographs of ten men were taken when they were clean shaven, after five days of stubble growth, ten days and then after six weeks of growth (full beard). These images were shown to a mixed group of volunteers who rated each photo for the qualities of sexual attractiveness, general health, masculinity and parenting abilities.
The study found that both men and woman ranked the fully bearded images as highest for masculinity, parenting abilities and health. The perception of three qualities were seen to increase linearly with facial hair growth.
However, whilst the men reckoned the fully bearded guys were also the most attractive, women ranked men with thick stubble (10 days of growth) as most sexually appealing. This perception could be linked to previous studies which have found that women tend to judge men with much thicker facial hair as more aggressive.
Gonorrhea is Getting Serious.
Antibiotic resistance is a rapidly increasing (and well documented) problem in many diseases and with over 17, 000 gonorrhea infections identified and treated in the UK last year it is no surprise that the drugs are beginning to fail.
The antibiotic ceftriaxone is the only drug used to successfully treat the common STI but cases of gonorrhea recorded in Canada, America and parts of Europe that have not responded to antibiotic treatment are on the rise. Currently, about 6% of gonorrhea infections diagnosed in Canada are not treatable with available antibiotics.
Untreated gonorrhea can lead to serious complications in both men and women as the bacteria can spread through the body, causing pelvic inflammatory disease and eventually affecting joints and heart valves. In women, long term infections can lead to infertility.
Whilst cases of resistant infections are still low, but it has been predicted that by 2015 these cases will be more common than the treatable strains. It is not likely that a new antibiotic will be developed by this time.
The Evolution of the Penis
Four researchers at the University of Georgia have published a study of how the evolution of the human penis has been affected by mate selection by females. In comparison to other closely related primates, the human penis is disproportionately large. From an evolutionary stand point, this is an interesting phenomenon as it seems selection for reproduction was precopulatory rather than post-, i. e. reproductive selection was not just dependent on sperm survival but on what the paper has described as "cryptic female choice".
There are many factors that determine mate choice and this study focused purely on the visual. The study involved the use of artificially generated images of men of varying heights, penis size and hips:shoulders ratios - in total 343 different figures were produced. These were shown to heterosexual women who rated their attractiveness as sexual partners (and before you start wondering, all the penises depicted in the study were flaccid).
Taller males with wider shoulders were consistently selected as most attractive, independent of penis size. However once individual factors were taken into account, for example, at one given hip:shoulder ratio, penis size had a small but significant increase in perceived attractiveness. Interestingly, after controlling for hip:shoulder ratio, penis size elevated relative attractiveness far more strongly for taller men than for shorter ones.
The relationship between penis size and attractiveness was not linear; a considerably larger-than-average penis (more than 2 standard deviations from the average of 8.9cm) made for a less attractive figure.
Most research into female attraction has shown that height and wide shoulders are the most important factors in mate selection but the findings in this paper does suggest that selection on penis size was potentially as strong as selection on stature back before humans began to habitually wear clothing.
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