Words About Things

A recent study by the University of Valencia has discovered that men experience stress when meeting a beautiful women, particularly one who is ‘out of their league’. An encounter with an attractive woman can raise a mans Cortisol levels (cortisol is commonly referred to as a stress hormone). High Cortisol levels can increase the negative effects of medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes although it can also have a positive effect in small doses.

The researchers asked 84 (presumably straight) male students to solve a Sudoku puzzle in a room with two strangers, a man and an attractive woman. They monitored the student’s stress levels which did not alter when the woman left the room. When the man departed leaving the students on their own with the woman their stress levels rose.

The researchers came to the conclusion that the possibility of courtship had the male participants hot under the collar:

“In this study we considered that for most men the presence of an attractive woman may induce the perception that there is an opportunity for courtship. While some men might avoid attractive women since they think they are ‘out of their league’, the majority would respond with apprehension and a concurrent hormonal response. This study showed that male cortisol levels increased after exposure to a five-minute short social contact with a young, attractive woman.”

It would be interesting to see if the level of stress hormones released was effected by other variables. Would men who were happily married for instance, be less likely to feel stressed due to the reduced chance of courtship? Would what the woman was wearing effect stress levels, for instance what effect would sexy lingerie have? Would the presence of the male volunteer’s girlfriend make the situation more or less stressful?

Beautiful women: Bad for your health?

Scientists from the University of Helsinki have recently claimed that women are becoming more beautiful with each successive generation. The theory goes that attractive women tend to have more children than less attractive women and more of these children are girls than boys. This means that attractive genes are passed on resulting in more beautiful girls or girls who are more beautiful? I’m still not sure but one thing the article was clear on was than men aren’t getting any better looking.

You would think that this seeing as this generation of men is more inclined to use moisturizer and care what we look like we would be better looking than the previous generation. I guess we should give up trying to compete and just enjoy being surrounded by beautiful women.

“If more attractive parents have more daughters and if physical attractiveness is heritable, it logically follows that women over many generations gradually become more physically attractive on average than men.”

Markus Jokela from the University of Helsinki designed the study which involved assessing the attractiveness of 2,000 American men and women. Researchers also looked at how many children those in the study had and confirmed that those considered more attractive were more likely to have female offspring. The eventual outcome of this is that each new generation contains more attractive women (or women who are considered more attractive, it’s a very subjective thing beauty and very hard to measure).

Megan Fox: Minger

A US study has shown that playing action packed video games can be good for your eyesight. In the study, those who played Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 saw a noticeable improvement in their ability to perceive different shades of grey. The participants were 58 percent better at perceiving fine differences in contrast after 50 hours of gameplay (not in a row presumably).

“When people play action games, they’re changing the brain’s pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery — somehow changing the optics of the eye.”

Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester

Those who played the games also showed an average of 43 percent improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray. This could be of benefit to those who have trouble driving a night according to Dr Bavelier.