NO LEFT TURN
PARIS
Everyone knows love turns heads-and a new study shows most couples turn in the same direction.
Nearly two-thirds of couples tilt their heads right and not left when smooching, according to the study in science journal Nature, which says people begin favoring the right-turn while still in the womb.
Turkish scientist Onur Gunturkun studied kissing couples in the United States, Germany, and Turkey. He found 64.5 percent turn their heads right when locking lips with their paramours. The preference is likely related to our earliest days because most people automatically begin turning their heads to the right during the last few weeks of pregnancy and the first six months after birth.
He said he found the right-turn dominated in lovers from their teens to their seventies, meaning the choice is likely a lifetime pattern set in those early days.
AFP
BODIES OF EVIDENCE
PARIS
Men's taste in women has changed dramatically over the last half-century, shifting away from girls with curves and big breasts and towards rivals who are androgynous and skinny, a study says.
The assertion comes from two psychoanalysts who pored over every Playboy from December 1953 onwards-probably one of the most coveted jobs ever allotted in scientific research-and calculated the body mass index of every centerfold.
Over 577 issues, the models became taller and their waist increased, while their hips became narrower and their bust became smaller. If Playboy is any guide, the needle on the male sexual compass has switched from Marilyn Monroe to Eva Herzigova, the scientists say.
The body of evidence is a slap to evolutionary biologists who contend that men have always preferred women with big curves because of the association of breasts and hips with health and fertility. The evolutionist argue that males are attracted to women who offer the best prospect for passing on their genes.
"These temporal trends are at odds with claims that centerfolds' body shapes are still more 'hourglasses' than 'stick insects' and that the maximally sexually attractive female waist:hip ratio is stable," say authors Martin Voracek of the University of Vienna Medical School and Maryanne Fisher of York University, Toronto.
AFP
Einstein Clone Okay but Not Saddam's
SINGAPORE
There is no place in the world for another Saddam Hussein, but a Mark II version of Albert Einstein would be welcomed by Singapore children surveyed on the potential for human cloning.
If humans are to be cloned then only choose the good ones, said the group of 10- to 12-year-olds.
On the general issue of human cloning, only 22 percent of the 67 children said yes, but when broken down into categories 55 percent favored cloning great leaders. Only three percent wanted copies of "evil leaders." They were in favor of Albert Einstein, Nobel laureates, and even Lee Kuan Yew.
Names mentioned in the not-wanted list included "Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein and mad scientists, a category you would expect from 12-year-olds," he said.
Only eight percent said it was acceptable for those who can afford to be cloned to do so, while 59 percent approved families cloning members who had been "tragically lost" and a similar number wanted to reproduce lost pets.
Potential pitfalls to cloning noted by the children are that "clones may be discriminated against," it would be "bad to have clones of the same leader rule all the time-should give a chance to new talent," and it would not be good "to create farms of human clones to be murdered for organs."
AFP
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