Category: Research

Why is beauty?

I know the title does not make grammatical sense. But think about it. Normally we focus a lot on who is beautiful. Not so much on the why. I’ve alluded in the past to the evolutionary reasons behind beauty. This idea is expounded in detail by Nancy Etcoff in her book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, which makes the case that “looking good has survival value, and that sensitivity to beauty is a biological adaptation governed by brain circuits shaped by natural selection”.

This is what boing-boing has to say about the idea:

Why do we think that certain things are beautiful? Because our ancestors did; it connotes an advantage to survival and reproduction.

When people are asked to describe a beautiful landscape they say the same thing: lake, river, mountain trees. We evolved to think it is beautiful becuase it is safe with escape routes.

When asked to describe beautiful people: clear skin, bright eyes, shiny hair — all of these things connote health fertility, protection.

There is interesting research backing up these claims:

Psychologists find that babies stare significantly longer at the faces adults find appealing, while the mothers of “attractive” babies display more intense bonding behaviors. The symmetrical face of average proportions may have become the optimal design because of evolutionary pressures operating against population extremes. Gentlemen may prefer blondes not so much for their hair color as for the fairness of their skin–which makes it easier to detect the flush of sexual excitement.

(source: Amazon’s review of the book.)

While looking into the background of these claims, I stumbled onto a bunch of fascinating facts about beauty and related aspects (like the handicap principle) that I plan to cover in future posts. Stay tuned.

Why Don’t The French Get As Fat As Americans?

This article reports on new research that has the answer:

Because they use internal cues — such as no longer feeling hungry — to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues — such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they’re watching is over.

See full article. (Found via boing-boing.)

Scientists Create See-Through Fish, Watch Cancer Grow

Through cross-breeding, scientists have created a zebra-fish with a transparent skin so that they can actually see the insides of the fish. Zebra fish are genetically similar to humans in a number of ways, and hence serve as good subjects for experiments like this. These are now being used to understand cancer. Excerpt:

White created the transparent fish, which he nicknamed Casper, by mating two existing zebrafish breeds, one that lacked a reflective skin pigment and the other without black pigment. The offspring had only yellow skin pigment, essentially appearing clear.

In one experiment, White and his colleagues inserted a fluorescent melanoma tumor into the abdominal cavity of the transparent fish. By observing the fish under a microscope, they found that the cancer cells started spreading within five days. White could actually see individual cells spreading.

See full article. They also have a picture of the fish for you to ogle.