Clovers In The Atmosphere

there is also an interesting study in which some sociobiologists took jamaican teenagers and had them dance. the researchers recorded the teenagers using computers and reflectors (same technology as athletic videogames) and created generic images doing the dance moves (the researchers controlled for appearance of the dancer by eliminating it) then asked female jamaican teens to judge how good the dancers were. the nondescript images that danced best as picked by the female jamaicans judged were actually the images of those in real life who were the most symmetrical. symmetry is a generally accepted proxy for good genes, because it is tough to bear out symmetry during development. admittedly they didn't control for the possible gain in self-confidence of symmetrical dancers who could have received prior benefits due to symmetry. but it is pretty fucking wild that we can sense who has good genes.

we can smell it too. as shown all those studies where women decided that men with different MHC (major histocompatibility complex) genotypes from their own had the sexiest smelling t-shirts. (Wedekind & Furi. 1997) Breeding with someone with a different MHC conveys maximum immuno-fitness upon your offspring. Women can also smell symmetrical men wihtout seeing them in a similar t-shirt experiment. (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1998). it has also been shown that women select perfumes to enhance their natural MHC-related odors. (Milinski & Wedekind, 2001)mindblowing.

I'll properly annotate this post when I get a chance.