For a healthy relationship, men should be ugly and rich, women pretty and mixed-race

Have you ever seen a happy couple walking down the street, holding hands, laughing and being generally smoochy, and thought to yourself, "How did that guy get her?"

I’m that guy.

As a fully paid-up member of the "batting out of my league club," it comes as no surprise to me that the happiest hetero relationships are those in which the female is objectively more attractive than the male.

McNulty, Neff and Karney in their report Beyond initial attraction: Physical attractiveness in newlywed marriage, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, found that the relative difference between partners’ levels of attractiveness is one of the most important factors when predicting marital behaviour. In relationships in which the wives were more attractive than their husbands, both the husband and wife were happier than in situations where the husband was more attractive than the wife. Indeed, a strong conclusion of this study was that relatively more attractive husbands were less satisfied. As opposed to new relationships, where being similarly attractive helps form a strong bond, similarity in attractiveness was unrelated to a married couple’s satisfaction and behaviour.

This got me thinking, what does it mean to be attractive? How can you measure this?

Michael B Lewis from the School of Psychology, Cardiff University has an interesting take on this. He recently published Why are mixed-race people perceived as more attractive? on perceptionweb, and also presented Who has the ‘X Factor’? at the 2010 British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference.

To test his theory that people from a mixed-race background appear proportionally over-represented in TV talent competitions such The X Factor, 1205 images from Facebook were shown to 20 white psychology students (is this a large and diverse enough group?), who rated each face on its attractiveness on a 9-point scale (5 being average). The racial background of those in the photos was inferred from the Facebook group from which the photos were taken. The result was that there was a small but highly significant difference in the attractiveness of mixed-race faces compared to white and black faces.

This is an interesting result and could point towards a perceptual demonstration of heterosis in humans. Heterosis is the idea that breeding with people genetically different to you leads to offspring genetically fitter than you. The theory is that the child would possess the genetic strengths of each parent and less of their weaknesses. Two genetically similar parents (that is, both black or both white) may have similar strengths and weaknesses, so the weaknesses may not be bred out.

But does facial attractiveness really correlate to genetic fitness?

There have been numerous studies on this topic, and the answer would seem to be yes. In terms of evolution, it makes sense that those you are attracted to are also those with whom you would have genetically strong children.

Or in the paraphrased words of Thornhill and Gangestad, “Humans discriminate between potential mates on the basis of attractiveness and it is reasonable to hypothesise that the psychological mechanisms underlying attractiveness judgments are adaptations that have evolved in the service of choosing a mate so as to increase gene propagation throughout evolutionary history.”

For a summary of how facial attractiveness can represent the health of a subject and their overall genetic well-being, see Thornhill and Gangestad’s Facial attractiveness in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, from where the above quote comes. There is also a nice discussion of how preferences change during menstrual cycles.

My conclusion therefore is that if you’re a hetero guy, you should find a girl better looking than you are, and to widen the attractiveness gap even further, it would help if she was mixed-race. Don't push it too far though, as there is bound to be some limit on how much more attractive a girl can be. Remember, similar looks at the start can help get the relationship going, it is after this point when an attractiveness gap can help.

This seems quite easy for men so far, as all the criteria have been placed upon the women. Not so.

In the seminal report Partner wealth predicts self-reported orgasm frequency in a sample of Chinese women, published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, Thomas V. Pollet and Daniel Nettle investigated the relationship between women’s self-reported orgasm frequency and the characteristics of their partners. They found that women report more frequent orgasms the higher their partner’s income. They controlled for age, health, happiness, educational attainment, relationship duration, wealth difference between the partners, difference between the partners in educational attainment, and regional location. They consider that wealth is seen as desirable in potential partners by women all over the world and studies in diverse populations have found that increasing wealth increases male marriage success. Thus, all other things being equal, richer men are preferred to poorer ones as mates.

The purpose of this study was to understand the evolution of the female orgasm – what is its adaptive significance? They come to a number of conclusions:

• The results could be an artefact of reporting bias. Reporting bias can act in two ways, either by women with frequent orgasms overestimating their partner’s income or by women with high-quality mates over reporting their orgasm frequency.
• There may be assortative mating of desirable men with women susceptible to being highly orgasmic. There is a heritable component to female orgasmic function (go on, ask your Mum…), but it is not known whether these particular genetic features are also involved in attraction and mate choice.
• More desirable mates may cause women to experience more orgasms. This is the interpretation most consistent with the functional view of the female orgasm – that is, as the orgasm feels good and comes about more often with desirable males, then this helps females find good men.

I love the fact they cite Alcock (1987) and Thornhill, Gangestad & Comer (1995)...

In conclusion therefore, men should be rich and ugly, women should be attractive and mixed race. QED.

Two asides:

• This conclusion is exceptionally shallow (I don't believe it myself). There are layers and layers of human psychology and culture that go on top of this. Plus the Lewis study used 20 white psychology students - surely we need a bigger base than this. Feel free to pick this apart, I was just having fun with it.
• I suspect that humans are evolutionarily wired to find women better looking than men. It was seen in the Lewis study that the female photos had a higher average score than the male photos for each race studied. Could this make sense with regards to sexual selection? I’m sure there are studies out there looking into this idea. I’d like to hear you thoughts on this, and the above topics.

Ep 117: Science of Superheroes - Mystique (X-men)

Ever wondered whether it is scientifically possible to become a superhero?

In a new series of podcasts, Dr Christopher Pettigrew (aka Dr Boob*) and I are going to tackle this question. Chris is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in University College Cork, and in these podcast episodes - which we will publish more than a few times a year - we will uncover whether it is possible now to possess the powers of superheroes, and if we can't, whether in the near future we could engineer ourselves to become superheroes.

The first superhero we are tackling is Mystique from X-Men. X-men get their powers from an "X gene" that normal humans do not possess, and Mystique is a shapeshifter who naturally looks blue. Actress Rebecca Romijn portrayed Mystique in the X-Men films - I know I clearly remember the blue body-paint...

Mystique has a number of powers including:

• The ability to change skin colour;
• The ability to shape-shift - that is, change form;
• She can impersonate other voices;
• She can rapidly grow her hair.

Within nature, chameleons are able to change their skin colour to match their environment. There are also technologies under current development, such as metamaterials, that can be used to make something look invisible. Through a combination of genetic manipulation to activate melanocytes (and possibly chromatophores), and the use of surface coatings, it is not unforeseeable that we could develop human chameleons. The difficulty here lies in whether we can make a skin colour change a conscious decision - how can you wire up the body such that skin colour responds your thoughts?

The challenge of being able to impersonate another person's voice should be easy enough to conquer in the near future through a combination of electronics and simple mimicry. It is also possible to foresee rapid hair growth - this could be accomplished by rapid protein synthesis, such as in spider webs.

The biggest difficulty comes with the shape-shifting - how can one change their 3D shape?

Tune in to the podcast here (or press play below) to discover what scientific techniques we came up with to tackle the problem of scientifically engineering Mystique:



A few extra notes to explain some of the random comments in the show:

• Iva Davies is the front man of Australian band Icehouse;
• Shane Warne, Greg Matthews and Graham Gooch are all cricketers who advertised the hair-loss company Advanced Hair;
  

Let us know your thoughts on how we could scientifically engineer Mystique. We rated this a 7.5 out of 10 possibly for the next 200 years - if someone really wanted to, notwithstanding the ethical concerns along the way.

Also let us know which superheroes you would be interested in us tackling.

* From here on in, Chris will be referred to as Dr Boob - this nickname stems from the fact that Chris's PhD and some of his post-doctoral work has been into the study of breast cancer - yes, someone who is actually changing the world!

Biometrics - Securing the Border

Back in 2007 I interviewed Associate Professor Stephanie Schuckers from Clarkson University for the Spoofing Biometric Security Systems article and podcast. Last week I attended the 2009 Border Security Conference in Melbourne and one of the major topics discussed was the role of biometrics in securing the border. It reminded me that I never actually published my full article on biometrics on Mr Science, so without further ado, here is an intro to biometrics, the role it plays in border security, and some of the controversies associated with it.

Can you control everything that is carried through an airport or onto a plane? Most of us are familiar with metal detectors, and the long queues that accompany checking-in. But new technologies are hoping to not only decrease the time you wait before jetting off on holiday, but also more tightly control what, and who, is taken onboard.

However, whilst this sounds like a marvellous plan, appealing to every world-weary explorer, business traveller or family with screaming kids, there is a certain amount of debate associated with the technologies at the core of the strategy.

The approach is founded on the evolving concept of biometrics, the study of methods for identifying people based upon their physical or behavioural traits. The concern is that, to be identified by these means, there must somewhere be a database of our personal traits. The technology could potentially allow us to be identified out of a crowd without our consent. Is this storage of information a breach of our civil liberties? Should we always be being watched? Or is this technology simply too crucial for law enforcement not to pursue?

Old and New Technology:

The word biometrics comes from the Greek words bio and metric, meaning “life measurement”. It is the study of methods for identifying people based on their behavioural or physical characteristics and includes well-known methods such as fingerprint analysis, which is used on every visitor entering the US, as well as retinal and iris scans, facial and voice recognition techniques, and behavioural recognition procedures that can identify you by your walk.

Airports have always been very concerned about their security. Let's have a look at some of the technologies currently being used, and investigate the progression from old-fashioned x-ray machines, to modern biometric tools.

Metal Detectors and X-Rays:

On checking in, every traveller in every airport around the world walks through a metal detector. Metal detectors work by electromagnetic induction – changing magnetic fields cause changing electric fields in metals, and vice versa. When a piece of metal is near the changing magnetic field being produced by the detector, electrical currents are induced in the metal, which then produces an alternating magnetic field of its own. This new magnetic field can then be detected and is why you need to remove metal objects like your belt when you walk through airport security.

Whilst you are walking through the metal detector, your bags are passing through an X-ray machine. As they move along the conveyor belt, X-rays, which are electromagnetic waves like light but much more energetic, are shone on the luggage. Many of the X-rays pass through unblocked by your suitcase and its contents, and detectors on the other side of your luggage measure how many of these X-rays make it through. By knowing that different things absorb different energy X-rays, a picture of your bag’s contents can be built up.

Explosives and Drug Detection:

Dogs have been used to sniff for explosives and drugs for many years, but it was only in 2003 that Explosive trace detection was introduced at Sydney airport. This system employs Ion Mobility Spectrometry. Firstly, a sample is taken by wiping a swab on your luggage or clothes. The swab is placed in the detector, and the sample is ionised – converted from its molecular form into its ionic (charged) form. The ions are separated by an electric field – different mass ions move at different speeds towards the detector, and so the time taken to arrive at the detector tells us if the telltale explosive, or drug, signature is present.

Another new method of explosive detection is terahertz spectroscopy. This technique uses radiation with a frequency between microwave and infrared, and can be more useful that X-rays as, although both X-rays and terahertz radiation can see through material, terahertz rays are non-ionising and so harmless to humans. They can also probe for chemical information, rather than just physical shape information, as many molecular excitations are within the terahertz frequency band.

Andrew Burnett, terahertz spectroscopy expert at the University of Leeds, says that the information obtained from terahertz spectroscopy is more sensitive than other radiation:

“This information is very specific, even allowing us to differentiate between different forms of the same drug… The aim is to eventually produce a system that gives us chemical specific information through clothing.”

Fingerprint analysis:

Fingerprint analysis is the oldest form of biometric identification, and is still regarded as one of the most reliable. Every visitor to the US has his or her fingerprint read on entry through an airport.

A fingerprint is an impression of the raised areas of epidermis – called friction ridges – on your finger, and everyone’s fingerprints are unique. You leave your fingerprints behind on things you touch by depositing the natural secretions – mainly water – from the eccrine glands in the friction ridge skin. These are called latent, which means hidden, fingerprints. If contaminants on the skin are also left behind, such as dirt, then they are called patent fingerprints. Patent fingerprints are easily seen by the human eye and so can be photographed and then identified as they are. Latent fingerprints are made visible by electronic, chemical and physical processing techniques such as “dusting” a crime scene.

Fingerprint analysis was traditionally completed manually by comparing the fingerprint with ink fingerprints on paper. As you can imagine, this was a very time consuming task. Modern day techniques are able to match fingerprints by using computerised databases.

An interesting fact is that the koala is one the few mammals that also has fingerprints.

Iris and Retina Recognition:

Iris scans look for patterns based on high-resolution camera images of the iris, whose intricate structure is unique to the person. Identification is unambiguous and as long as you do not damage your eye during your life, your iris scan will not change. The technology has been employed at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands since 2001 to allow passport-free travel. The United Arab Emirates has such systems at all 17 air, land and seas ports.

Retinal recognition is slightly different, as the scan maps the capillaries feeding blood to the retina. These blood vessels absorb light more readily than the surrounding tissue, and when a ray of low-energy infrared light is shone into the eye, the reflection of the light, which depends on the capillaries, is measured. Even identical twins have different retinal scans, and like iris recognition, your retinal scan will stay the same throughout your life.

Facial Recognition:

Facial Recognition is a relatively new technology that compares facial features in the live image with those in a database. The Australian Customs Service’s SmartGate system compares the face of the examined with their image on their ePassport microchip, and replaced manual passport checks for Qantas staff in 2003.

Facial recognition is the way forward for the aviation industry, with the International Civil Aviation Organisation issuing a resolution endorsing the use of face recognition as the:

“globally interoperable biometric for machine assisted identity confirmation with machine-readable travel documents.”

Voice Recognition:

These days, it seems every time you call up your phone company or book a cab, you talk to a machine. These systems are based around voice recognition technology.

Clive Summerfield, biometrics and voice recognition expert, and CEO of Three S Holdings Pty Ltd in Canberra, thinks that over the next five years, voice biometrics will eclipse iris and facial scans and become second only in market share to fingerprinting systems.

“Voice recognition, when configured correctly, is 10 times more accurate that face, 2-3 time more accurate than fingerprint and approaching the performance of iris.”

Passports:

A new Australian passport, the biometric ePassport, was introduced in 2005 and has an embedded microchip that stores the holder’s photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and expiry date. European countries are currently issuing passports that have the owner’s photograph and fingerprints on the chip. The US passport has a chip that is big enough to store additional biometric information such as facial recognition and retinal scan information.

Will biometrics really shorten airport queues?

Even if these new technologies work perfectly inside the airport, they will not shorten check-in queues if the public does not like them or cannot use them. M. Angela Sasse, Professor of Human-Centred Technology at University College London, researches the usability of security systems and concludes that even if a system works well, it will not gain approval if it is not easy to use or looks unpleasant. A recent iris scan trial at Heathrow airport, in which participants could not adjust the height of the scanners, and a recent US airport trial, in which dirty fingerprint readers were used, are examples of poorly designed systems.

“You should design all the processes the traveller encounters to be as easy and pleasant as possible … Make sure the system is clean and pleasant to use.”

The ethics and future of biometrics:

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world, and estimates have valued identity-related crime as a $2 trillion problem. Biometrics is seen as a potent weapon in the fight against identity theft, however the concern surrounding biometrics is that there must somewhere be a database of your traits. Could someone steal this information? The common fear is that once your fingerprint or retinal information is stolen, it is compromised for life, as these patterns never change.

What differentiates biometrics from other forms of security is that there must be a match between the “live” biometric scan, and the “stored” information. Unless an identity-stealer has recreated your facial expressions or other biometric information to the minutest detail, they will not be able to pass through security.

Mathew James, Managing Director of UK Biometrics Ltd., says that the fingerprinting technology used by UK Biometrics is ethically sound as a biometric thief is likely to just end up with a bunch of useless numbers:

“We do not store fingerprints and it is impossible to recreate a fingerprint from the data we store. Our scanners register up to 17 minutiae points on a fingerprint, convert these into data which is then encrypted for future comparison. Even if this data were stolen, the thief would have a lot of meaningless numbers, useless without the scanner and its attendant technology.”

Whilst biometric technologies may tightly safeguard information, desperate thieves can, however, always find a way. In 2005, Malaysian car thieves cut off the finger of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class owner when attempting to steal his car so that they could use his fingerprints to start the vehicle. And the popular television show MythBusters broke into a secured building with a photocopied fingerprint.

Stephanie Schuckers, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clarkson University, conducts research into how to prevent fingerprinting systems from being spoofed by creating fake fingerprints out of such materials as Play-Doh, and thinks that biometric security systems are an improvement on traditional methods, even if there may be some vulnerabilities.

“I try to caution people to ask, what is your security question and what is your solution now, and does biometrics improve this in terms of whatever your goals may be – convenience, improved security. Just because there is a vulnerability – well all security systems have a vulnerability – it doesn’t mean it’s not necessarily a technology that might (not) be useful.”

Schuckers raises the example of a passport, and says that by adding a biometric element, you take a step forward to improved security.

“The current state of passports is a photo that may be 10 years old and a guy looking at you to see if it matches. Would adding a fingerprint improve the security at the borders? I would argue that that would be a step above the present technology. Can someone somehow slip a thin fake finger over their hand? Sure. That’s the state of the technology now, but you’ve made steps to improved technology.”

She believes that whilst there may be some vulnerability in biometric systems, they can be overcome by a combination of systems that would make it extremely difficult for the identity stealer to be successful.

“You can make it more difficult for someone to spoof the system by combining say a fingerprint, a card, and a PIN. So now your potential identity stealer would have to have all of those items to access the bank account… There are very simple steps that you can take now with commercially available devises that would minimise the risks”

Whether or not identity theft is likely or even possible, biometric systems are more and more being within society, with facial recognition software used in Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) all over the UK. Is this a breach of our privacy? Should Big Brother track our every move?

Schuckers believes that these are serious questions that need to be addressed by society, but that they also open up research areas to maintain the security of your personal information.

“I think those are reasonable questions that we need to ask as a society. What applications are meaningful that you would take the trade-off between privacy and the extra security you might get using the biometrics? I also see it as a research avenue. There are a lot of people researching ways to use biometric information in such a way that doesn’t actually give up your private information.”

Clive Summerfield sees the issue as a legal one, revolving around privacy and storage of sensitive personal information, as opposed to the technical challenge of safeguarding the information.

“At the end of the day, I think this will become a legal issue, where the privacy, protection and confidentiality of such information becomes legislated and that senior executives of organisations collecting, using, communicating and storing biometric information will become legally responsible for any breaches, along with biometric systems developers, implementers and vendors, who will be required to certify that their system implements the functions necessary to protect the biometric information.”

He draws a parallel with the postal service, in which stealing a letter is a federal crime, and thus protects the confidentiality of the contents of letters. There is a similar law regarding eavesdropping on telephone conversations, and these systems are widely accepted by society, despite the fact that there is little or no technological protection of information conveyed in these ways.

“Similar legal protection needs to be in place for biometrics for the mainstream of society to start to access biometrics… Anyway, I’m no legal expert – so how you go about implementing such laws, I’ll need to leave to the legal experts!”

Another concern is the storage of personal information on a single chip in your passport. Data on the chip can theoretically be stolen using wireless technology, and even if the information is encrypted, experiments in the Netherlands showed that the Dutch passport encryption could be cracked within two hours. Whilst you would never be able to set up the sensitive equipment to steal the information in our ever-more secure airports, the same could not be said about hotels and other places where you need your passport.

Mathew James thinks that in any situation in which there is a need to make sure of a person’s identity, there is a future for biometrics:

“Think of the number of keys, swipe cards, prox fobs and PINs that keep a modern airport secure. They can all be replaced by the one key which cannot be lost, stolen, forged or hacked – the human fingerprint. People can be added to, or deleted from, the system in seconds. Security staff can ‘access all areas’ without carrying a bunch of keys and passengers need only ever register once.”

As for biometric passports?

“We see a future where the only passport you will ever need will be your fingerprint, registered once in your home country.”

That time again - Movember

This year, the Mr Science Show has again entered the charity moustache growing contest, Movember. Movember supports men's-health charities, and this year in Australia, all money raised is going towards the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. These issues are close to my heart as people close to me have suffered, and even died, because of prostate cancer and depression. Read more about the Fundraising Outcomes.

Did you know:

• Depression affects 1 in 6 men....most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
• Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who will die from breast cancer annually.

For more sciencey stuff on moustaches and Movember, here is everything you need:

• The science of moustaches;
• Movember time-lapse from 2006;
• My photos from the 2006 and 2007 events.

To sponsor us, check out our Mo-space or donate directly from this link

Thanks y'all!

Sponsor Marc in Movember!

It's that time again, Movember (the month formerly known as November). I'll be growin a Mo (slang for Moustache) to raise funds for The Prostate Cancer Charity.

• Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer diagnosed in men in the U.K. with at least one man dying every hour from the disease.
  
• Every year about 35,000 men in the U.K. are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 10,000 men die from the disease.
• One man in 11 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime in the U.K.

To sponsor my Mo (moustache) and fight against prostate cancer please go here.

To bring some science to this, you may remember last year's mo-tastic Mr Science take on it all. Following these links for all you will ever need to know about moustaches and science

• The science of moustaches
• Week 1 Movember 2006 Documentary
• Farewell Moustache - Time lapse and a look back
  

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Bulldog Natural Grooming and Playboy.
Movember is proud partners with The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Spoofing Biometric Security Systems

This week on the podcast, I talk to Associate Professor Stephanie Schuckers from Clarkson University about her research into biometric security systems - security systems based upon your physical traits such as fingerprint analysis, voice and face recognition and iris and retina scans. Stephanie's research aims to find vulnerable areas in such systems and so she has fooled fingerprinting systems with simple tools such as play doh.

I am publishing a complete article on biometric systems later this year with The Helix magazine.

Grab the mp3 here.

Movember Farewell - Time lapse and Memories

Here is my video remembrance of Movember - the month in which a few of us grew moustaches to raise money for men's health.

Yes, I realise that this is not particularly "sciencey", but its good fun. A big thanks to the other members of the team, who also feature in this video.

The time lapse is not perfect, but some of the reflections, and some of the work of the other guys, particularly Adrian, are pretty funny. I quite liked my moustache, I miss the little guy.

You can watch this below or download it here

Movember Week 1 Documentary

Here is my take on week 1 of Movember.

It may not be very sciencey, or funny, but hopefully it will help us raise some money for a great cause. Sponsor me securely here and check out our team progress here. For more info, check out last week's Movember story



Watch this here

MO-vember - the science of moustaches

This month on Mr Science, we are celebrating November, or more particularly, Mo-vember. That is, for a good cause, I am growing a moustache, or a Mo. You can sponsor me to do this, and check out our work team's progress and varying states of scruffiness here (Well done Adrian!) Mo-vember, my moustache, and the science of hair and men's health was the subject of a panel discussion between myself and the other members of Diffusion Science Radio, and can be picked up as an mp3 on my podcast here.

The cause is male health, and research into depression, testicular cancer and prostate cancer. Men's health is an often overlooked topic, however when you look at it, men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy for men is six years less than females (presently 75 compared to 81). Men access health services 30-40% less than women, thereby denying themselves the chance for prevention and early detection of common diseases.

Money raised through this event go into the following areas:

Prostate Cancer in partnership with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (www.prostate.org.au) because every year in Australia 2,700 men die of prostate cancer - more than the number of women who die from breast cancer. Find out more

Male Depression in partnership with Beyond Blue (www.beyondblue.org.au) because one in six men suffer from depression at any given time but most don't seek help. Find out more

Testicular Cancer because it's the second most common cancer in young men aged 18 to 35. Find out more

Seeing my face is going to covered in an ugly growth for the next month, this week we are going to take a look at the science of hair. Facial hair is a secondary sex characteristic in human males. Most men develop facial hair in the latter years of puberty, whilst many women also have some facial hair, but generally after menopause and generally less than men.

Male pogonotrophy (beardedness) is often culturally associated with wisdom and virility. Excessive hairiness in women however is known as hirsutism, and is usually an indication of abnormal hormonal variation.

The amount of facial hair varies from individual to individual, and also between ethnic groups. For example, men from many East Asian, West African or Native American backgrounds typically have much less facial hair than those of European, Middle Eastern or South Asian descent.

But what is hair and why does it grow out of the side of our faces? Hair is a growth of dead cells protruding from the skin, and occurs in many animals, mainly mammals. However, in contrast to most mammals, humans do not have thick hair all over their bodies. While other great apes have relatively thin body hair and some bare areas, in comparison humans have very little. Theories about why humans, in comparison to apes, have less hair range from the idea that it was because early humans lived on African savannas and lost their hair in order to more easily control their body temperature, to the idea of neoteny, a form of sexual selection where one mate chooses another because of their youthful – that is, less hairy – looks. A more recent theory suggests that we lost our hair to reduce our vulnerability to fur-loving parasites.

There is a myth out there that hair and nails continue growing for several days after death. Often people have thought that others, previously thought dead, were still alive because of this. Sadly, this is untrue. The appearance of growth is actually caused by the retraction of skin as the surrounding tissue dehydrates, making it look like the nails and hair were growing. The skin was just shrinking.

As we age, hair becomes greyer as the pigment in the hair is lost and the hair becomes colourless. In general men tend to become grey at younger ages than women. I’m starting to get the odd grey hair and it scares me, I’m only 27!

But an interesting fact is that grey hair in itself is not actually grey – it is either white or dark –the head of hair appears grey because of these two colours mixing. As such, people who have blond hair when young usually develop white hair instead of grey hair when aging. Red hair usually goes sandy colour and then white.

But that’s only for the lucky ones who keep their hair. It is estimated that half of all men are affected by male pattern baldness by the time they are 50. This can also be seen in other primates and apparently has an evolutionary benefit – I wonder what that could be….

Hair thinkness ranges from 17 to 181 µm, and different parts of the human body feature different types of hair. From childhood onward, vellus hair covers nearly the entire human body. Rising levels of male hormones (androgens) during puberty causes a transformation process of vellus hair into terminal hair on several parts of the male body. Hair follicles respond to androgens, primarily testosterone, and this causes males to start growing thicker and denser body hair. Body hair grows for about 3 to 6 months before being pushed out by a following hair, whilst head hair grows at the rate of about 1.25 cm a month.

Check out www.movember.com.au for more information about this moustache growing spectucular, and if you feel like sponsoring me, go here or type “Marc West” into the sponsorship page and use your credit card. Its all for charity. Happy to do moustache requests, if it grows long enough, or to wear particularly stupid or outlanding clothes to the gala party, if sponsored the right amount!

Mo-vember, my moustache, and the science of hair and men's health was the subject of a panel discussion on Diffusion Science Radio on 2SER. You can listen here

Space Invaders Mind Control, Small Testes and Facial Expressions

Mind control over Space Invaders
A 14-year-old who suffers from epilepsy, is the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game using only the signals from his brain, a unique experiment conducted by a team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has found.

And the game was one of my favourites from the 1980s, Space Invaders.

This type of work has implications towards someday building biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, for instance, enabling the disabled to move prosthetic arms or legs by simply thinking about it.

The teenager had an electric grid placed upon his brain to record electrocorticographic (ECoG) activity - data taken invasively right from the brain surface.

Eric C. Leuthardt, an assistant professor of neurological surgery at the School of Medicine, and Daniel Moran, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, performed their research on the boy who had the grids implanted so that neurologists and neurosurgeons could find the area in the brain that causes epileptic seizures.

Leuthardt and Moran connected the patient to a sophisticated computer running a special program known as BCI2000 which connected Space Invaders to the ECoG grid. They then asked the boy to do various motor and speech tasks, moving his hands various ways, talking, and imagining. The team could see from the data which parts of the brain and what brain signals correlate to these movements. They then asked the boy to play Space Invaders by actually moving his tongue and his hand. He was then asked to imagine the same movements, but not to actually perform them with his hands or tongue.

"He cleared out the whole level one basically on brain control," said Leuthardt. "He learned almost instantaneously... He mastered two levels playing only with his imagination. This really was a symphony of expertise ranging from neurosurgery, neurology, neuroscience, engineering, and computer science which was years in the making. The end result is something we can really be proud of."

You might be horny, but you have small testes
Some interesting news now for the tough cocky muscle men among us. Professor Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia and US researcher Professor Douglas Emlen of the University of Montana have shown that there is an evolutionary trade-off between the ability to fight off sexual competitors - ie be really tough - and reproductive potency.

They found that beetles with the biggest horns have the smallest testes. There is a trade off between the ability to find a mate and the ability to fertilise her.

The researchers looked at beetles of the genus Onthophagus, dung beetles known for the size and variety of their horns.

"What we did was test a fundamental assumption underlying evolution ... that males face a trade-off between competing for access to lots of females and investment in gaining fertilisation with those females," Simmons says.

"They need to have big horns to win fights and get females and they need to have big testes in order to win in sperm competition.

"But they can't do both, so species which invest very heavily in their horns tend to invest less in their testes."

There are other examples in nature also. Bats trade the size of their testes for brain power. Stalk-eyed flies, in which eye span width is a measure of sexual desirability, trade testes size for the width of their eyes.

And clearly is known in humans - those with the most expensive cars with the loudest sound system, clearly have the smaller penises.

Inherited Facial Expressions
Do you look like your father when you're angry? Probably more than you'd imagined. Facial expressions may be inherited.

According to Israeli scientists, every person has a set of facial expressions that is unique to them, a signature of their identity that remains stable over time. Stable patterns of facial expressions arise before a baby is six months old, but until now, scientists were unsure whether these patterns were learned or innate.

"We were interested to examine whether there is a unique family facial expression signature," said lead author Gili Peleg from the University of Hafa in Israel. "We assumed that we would find similarities between the facial expressions of relatives."

The study, published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved 21 participants who had been blind from birth, each with either one or two relatives who had normal vision. According to the researchers, blind individuals have no way of learning the facial expressions of their relatives by mimicry. The common perception that blind people touch other's faces to sense their expressions was revealed to be, in fact, very impolite behaviour.

The scientists induced six emotional states in each individual - sadness, anger, joy, think-concentrate, disgust and surprise - and then documented all the facial movements the person made while experiencing a particular emotion.

Forty-three different facial movements were recorded, including movements such as: biting the lower lip on the left-hand side; moving the lips while pressed together, as though chewing; rolling the upper lip inside the mouth; sticking out the tongue slightly while touching both lips; and pulling down the corners of the mouth while pushing the chin forward.

A computer program was used to allocate the blind individual to a family according to the types of movements observed and their frequencies. The blind individual was allocated to the correct family 80 per cent of the time when using information from all six emotional states.

"These findings indicate the existence of a hereditary basis for facial expressions," Peleg explained.

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