MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'hunks'. Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:20:41 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3710538&cid=t_380731_87_f&fid=36050&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblisstree.com%2Flive%2Fwomen-like-masculine-men-thank-you-science%2F photo: Thinkstock You’re with your girlfriends at a restaurant, and the waiter takes your order. “Whoa!” your friend says, “He was totally checking you out!” He was? You didn’t notice the waiter looking at you. This could be because his face wasn’t masculine enough. New research shows that the more exaggerated sex-specific features a person has, the faster you notice him or her looking at you. Scientists think this might be an evolutionary technique, since feminine women and masculine men were shown to make the healthiest mate in previous studies. We think it might just be because hunky guys catch our eye. Which is sort of what the research is saying, so… Bring on the lumberjacks, construction workers, and firemen. How do you think the proces... Breastfeeding 1-2-3 blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3710538 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:24:48 +0100 3710538 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2512367&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F06%2Fclass-and-opposition-to-teenage-sex.php The GSS asks people about the morality of premarital sex between post-pubescent minors (TEENSEX):What if [a male and female] are in their early teens, say 14 to 16 years old? In that case, do you think sex relations before marriage are always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?Most people say "always wrong," so I'll just look at those responses; the other responses have little room to vary since all must add up to 100%. How does opposition vary across demographic groups? [1] As for social class, the elites say they're more ethical than the rabble, but on the other hand, they're big supporters of "sex is natural and therefore can't be harmful." So which is it?Let's see what the data say:Clearly, those with more prestigious jobs (SEI) are less opposed. Perh... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2512367 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:51:00 +0100 2512367 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2090027&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F01%2Fteen-birth-rates-up-but-nothing-to.php After declining pretty steadily from 1991 to 2005, in 2006 teen birth rates showed a slight uptick. Rather than swallow what the mass media and doomsaying blogosphere infers, read the report for yourself -- what you want to know is contained in the first 5 to 10 pages. Since most people worry about the long-term trend, and where things are going, I've taken data from the report's tables and put them into easy to understand time-series graphs, broken down by race and ethnicity. I'll then address a few of the larger issues.All birth rates are live births per 1000 women in a given group. I'll only look at births to 15 - 17 year-olds because mothers younger than that are even rarer, and people freak out less about mothers at or above the age of majority. The 18 - 19 graphs look similar, and yo... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2090027 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:48:00 +0100 2090027 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2040107&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F12%2Fdo-women-lighten-their-hair-to.php In Jason's post on the distributions of hair and eye color, it looks like women are claiming their hair is lighter than it is. The sex differences are the opposite of what is found when the hair is rated by others. Women are lying because they think it makes them look better.If they're going to misrepresent their hair color, they're likely to dye it for the same reason. Whether it is to participate in the fashion for blonds in their age cohort or to cater to men in their cohort (there's evidence that younger audiences aren't as captivated by light hair), older women should lighten their hair more. It's like a boob job.I compared age and hair color data from Playboy Playmates of the Month. I only distinguish between blonds and non-blonds (though there are a few tough calls who I label inter... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2040107 Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:17:00 +0100 2040107 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1704756&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F08%2Fhas-porn-become-mainstream-not-really.php A rumor I've been hearing a lot lately, although I recall hearing it as early as 2003, is that "porn is becoming / has become mainstream" -- or that it's ubiquitous, unavoidable, the wallpaper of our culture. Like most alarmist ideas spread by the innumerate -- failing schools, oral sex rampant among teenagers, the coming Islamic Caliphate -- I assume it is a gross exaggeration or false. And as always, I'm right. It doesn't take a genius: simply judge based on the track record of similar panics made possible by mass media, going back to the witch hysterias of Early Modern Europe.I collected a bunch of data about a month ago and planned on doing some time series analysis, maybe showing how certain models (like epidemics or logistic growth) would fit the data, but the fall semester begins so... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1704756 Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:04:00 +0100 1704756 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1700783&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F08%2Fattractiveness-logarithmically.php Our intuition of space and time is to perceive them logarithmically: we place a bunch of tick-marks near "here" and "now," and only measure orders of magnitude as we move outward. The linear scale used by scientists places a tick-mark at evenly spaced intervals. For example, between "here" and 100 miles away, humans may have a bunch of words for nearby distances -- "right here right here," "right here," "heeeeere," "here," and "there" -- while we would represent the majority of the distance that is not near with a few words, such as "theeeeere," "over there," "way over there," "way way over there," etc. Ditto for time. John Hawks reviewed a recent study, which itself contains many references, er, right here right here.I think we perceive physical attractiveness in the same way. (Although q... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1700783 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:46:00 +0100 1700783 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1582974&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F07%2Fmaxims-audience-prefers-brunettes.php While showing that the super-popularity of blonds is recent, I saw an apparent reversal of the upward trend around 2000, suggesting that perhaps Playboy readers are becoming fatigued by blonds. To get a better feel for what the younger generations prefer, let's look at Maxim magazine (US edition), whose average reader is 27.5 years old (by contrast, the average Playboy reader is 32.5). Maxim is the contemporary counterpart to Playboy -- it's widespread on college campuses, and is what horny dudes are likely to leaf through to ogle hot babes. They also have roughly the same circulation -- about 2.5 million. For those in a rush, I've boldfaced all key results.Audacious Epigone and I have both done analyses on the Maxim Hot 100 lists for recent years (see here and here). But these smell of "l... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1582974 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:10:00 +0100 1582974 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1556376&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F06%2Fyour-generation-was-more-into.php Remember that better time when college coeds frolicked on the quad lawn, safe from the eyes of older males, who were drawn instead to the allure of a mature woman? Indeed, doesn't it seem like nowadays, in our Girls Gone Wild culture, we shove females into the sexual spotlight at ever younger ages? That's what you'd conclude from the 50,000 alarmist results that a Google search for "+sexualizing +young" returns, in particular the recent panic over 15 year-old Miley Cyrus posing semi-topless for Vanity Fair. The cropped picture to the left is of Elizabeth Ann Roberts, who was 16 when she was photographed nude as Playboy Playmate of the Month -- of January 1958.On an intuitive level, though, we know that the culture must be more hostile than before to sexualizing young females -- there would... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1556376 Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:29:00 +0100 1556376 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1554466&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F06%2Fbygone-brunette-beauty-fashion-in-hair.php Long-time readers know that one of my beliefs that I'll stop at nothing to prove is that blond women are not sexier than brunettes, whatever other appeal they obviously have for many men. Point-estimates of the current popularity of blond hair neglect the fact that standards of beauty can change over time -- within boundaries, to be sure, but still. Perhaps we only live in a blond-obsessed world today, while brunettes may have ruled in the past. Indeed, I will show just that. Furthermore, the shift toward blonds parallels several other shifts toward a more masculine ideal of female beauty since the early / mid-1960s.The data come from Playboy Playmates of the Month ("Playmates") from 1954 to 2007. We need to look at sources that pander to popular demand in sexual tastes, which excludes run... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1554466 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:12:00 +0100 1554466 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1484932&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F06%2Fselection-speculation-clock-and-reward.php Since so many comments lead off with some variant of "I would guess," why not try to corrall them all into one post where they could serve a purpose? Each week I'll find some area of the human genome that shows signs of recent selection, see what phenotypes the gene affects, and although I'll likely provide the most convincing story, readers can conjecture to their heart's content about what might have driven selection. It may, for once, improve the discussion to comment while still deranged from last night's drink.Let's start with the data: using Haplotter, we see that for the gene CLOCK, there is a signal of recent selection in Africans but not in Europeans or Asians. The CLOCK gene is involved in maintaining our circadian rhythm, and I started this search looking for between-group diffe... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1484932 Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:39:00 +0100 1484932 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1451860&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F05%2Fmale-preferences-and-debunking-myths.php Click for UncensoredIn the comments section to a 2blowhards post on booty shakin', blogger Alias Clio puts forth an argument from incredulity regarding several hypotheses I proposed: 1) that male preferences for different parts of the female body have, over time, correlated with personality traits; 2) that natural selection has had a role in causing some men to prefer one body part over another; and 3) that the correlation could be caused by some simple mechanism. She also repeats an evolutionary just-so story about why human females developed large breasts -- that is has something to do with face-to-face sex -- and that too is worth taking a hard look at (the story, that is).As to 1), the available data do paint a somewhat clear picture that assmen, boobmen, and legmen are not the same on... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1451860 Mon, 19 May 2008 01:49:00 +0100 1451860 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1309076&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F03%2Ftraits-of-men-who-prefer-breasts-booty.php Pursuing a hunch inspired by a post on breast size and getting married by Irina, I managed to hunt down a study that shows the characteristics of the Boobman, Assman, and Legman. First though, I could not find any studies that investigated what non-obvious correlates there may be of breast size, rump size, or leg length. So I can't back up Irina's observation that larger breasts, as opposed to say a rounder butt, make a woman more likely to get married.The idea is not ridiculous: females vary in their reproductive strategies, some specializing in shorter-term and some in longer-term relationships, for example. And like many strategic choices, there is likely a trade-off: to wit, between investing a finite amount of body fat more in the upper or more in the lower region. Larger breasts coul... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1309076 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:11:00 +0100 1309076 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1253253&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F02%2Femotional-fragility-as-sexually.php Roissy recently drew up a list of female skills for attracting males, and although it is clearly weighted toward succeeding in short-term relationships, the rank order seems about right for getting married too. One quick way to see what has mattered to men is to look for sexually dimorphic traits. As Darwin noted, such traits can have the flavor of "armaments," used to shove same-sex rivals out of the mating competition (such as deer antlers), or "ornaments" which attract mates (such as the peacock's tail), or both. I'll review some evidence that emotional vulnerability has been sexually selected in human females due to its attractiveness to males, rather than its use in female vs. female competition.First, let's use YouTube to convince ourselves that emotional fragility makes a female mor... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1253253 Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:02:00 +0100 1253253 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1238189&cid=t_380731_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2008%2F02%2Farms-races-and-interracial-encounters.php After YouTubing VH1's The Pickup Artist (a contest reality show where guys learn how to pick up girls), something struck me about how the bar and nightclub scene so thoroughly devastated the East Asian contestant. Sure, every guy gets rejection anxiety and experiences rejection, including the occasional antarctic stare and turn-away response that the Asian guy received. But he looked like he was about to commit suicide, which he ended up doing symbolically by electing himself to be kicked off the show. You see the same stewing-in-rage pattern among Angry Asian Male websites, where they barely contain their bitterness about how White females show no interest in them. * Why is it that Asian guys seem to experience shell-shock in the bar and nightclub scene?The answer may lie in the arms race... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1238189 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:19:00 +0100 1238189