Posted on 04/04/2007 1:06:34 PM PDT by blam
Study Explains Why We're Not All Beautiful
By Andrea Thompson
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 28 March 2007
09:47 am ET
A new study explains why we aren't all born with Brad Pitt’s perfectly chiseled features or Angelina Jolie’s pouty lips.
A long-standing thorn in the side of biologists has been the difficulty in accounting for the enormous variation between individuals when sexual selection by females for the most attractive mates should quickly spread the “best” genes through a population.
“It is a major problem for evolutionary biology,” said study team leader Marion Petrie of Newcastle University.
The lek paradox
For some species, females select the most attractive males to mate with: female peacocks will choose males with the longest tail feathers—the peacock version of George Clooney. These more attractive features usually indicate some other level of genetic fitness, such as disease resistance, that the female’s offspring will then also inherit.
According to this method of sexual selection, if females only bred with the most attractive males, then all males should be equally attractive and sexual selection could not take place. (In the peacocks’ case, all males would have similarly long tails.) But clearly this isn’t the case: for every Johnny Depp out there, there’s a George Costanza—in humans, birds and other animals alike.
This so-called “lek paradox” (a lek is a group of males congregated for mating) has plagued evolutionary biologists for decades.
“If you had no variation at all, you wouldn’t get evolution,” Petrie told LiveScience.
But a group of British scientists think they have found the answer to the paradox in the human body’s “DNA repair kits.”
DNA repair kits
A cell’s DNA repair kit is not really a kit but a set of molecular processes that routinely repair the damage
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Hey count me in on that. I have NEVER thought her beautiful. And after the Pitt/Anniston mess even less.
Jane Russell - beautiful. Liz Taylor - beautiful. Jolie? Nope. I just don’t get it. (neither does my husband). Of course to him Lynda Carter was the most beautiful woman he ever saw (after me, of course).
Oh my. I just had to readjust my seat.
The other day my wife was asking me to define the term, “built like a brick #### house.” I will print these pictures and put a picture to the definition.
Your dogs are lovely! I am the proud owner of a minature schnauzer that just turned 1. She is the love of my life and has the heart of a lion. She has seen me through some terrible times and my latest bought with cancer.
If someone could tell me how to post a pic, I’d post her.
I love you, you little ex mo devil! Alcohol increaseth thy desire but diminishith thy performance. Diabetes takes everything but thy tongue strength away.
I ran across the ugliest woman I EVER saw in a grocery store the other day. She had two kids with her and I pleasantly said “ Lady, are those kids twins?” She said, (overjoyed) “NO. Why? Do you think they look alike?” I said “No. I just can’t imagine you got laid twice.”
Game...Set...Match!!!
Selma Hayek - truly beautiful and curvy. She just conceived a child by a guy who is average looking and way older than her - but I think he’s rich.
Ladies and Gentlemen...presenting...
SALMA HAYEK
I read he’s 43 and controls a few famous designer clothing lines...a multi millionaire.
Why we’re not all beautiful?
Money. Men pick beauty. Women pick survival.
Pretty women will stay with an ugly man if he has money.
And before there was money, it was the ugly guy with lots of arrowheads and the longest spear.
Actually, the penis' balls look like Barbra Streisand's boobs.
Or vice versa...
Seems of late, all I see is de-evolution
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I believe the reason I wouldn’t defend Angelina Jolie is that hse is too freakish and her recent penchant when it comes to adopting children creeps me out. I’m female, but not so blind that I would defend someone beautiful if they had a revolting personality.
The "beer goggle effect", beta, can be quantified as follows:
An = number of units of alcohol consumed
S = smokiness of the room (graded from 0-10, where 0 clear air; 10 extremely smoky)
L = luminance of 'person of interest' (candelas per square metre; typically 1 pitch black; 150 as seen in normal room lighting)
Vo = Snellen visual acuity (6/6 normal; 6/12 just meets driving standard)
d = distance from 'person of interest' (metres; 0.5 to 3 metres)
A value of less than one means virtually no effect. Values of 1000 or more would be needed to even glance in the general direction of Helen Thomas.
THAT'S GREAT!
Just wanted to say thanks for posting that...I have made a note of it...:)
Much appreciated!
I’ll get you for this : )
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