The research, carried out by the University of St Andrews, brings scientists closer to revealing the secrets of what women find attractive in men. The latest results show that women liked men who were both masculine looking and looked like themselves.
The research used computer digital techniques to manipulate men's faces. Faces were made to look more or less masculine, and more or less like the women who rated them. Women rated each face for attractiveness.
The new study was carried out by lead researcher Tamsin Saxton, a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC), based at the University's School of Psychology.
Come on now, Katie is not only more beautiful than Tom, but looks tougher too!
She commented, "Previous research has often found that women can be attracted to masculine men, but also a bit suspicious of them. However, women tend to trust men more if they look like them. So perhaps the resemblance cancelled out the women's suspicions. Or maybe the women felt they were better matched with men who looked like them, because if two people resemble each other, they might both be attracted to each other."
Celebrity lookalikes which could fit the mould include Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp, David and Victoria Beckham and Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
The study was carried out in collaboration with the University of Liverpool. Researcher Craig Roberts commented, "When people rate what's attractive, they have to consider lots of different characteristics. What's really interesting is that masculinity was more important to women's judgments compared with whether the men looked like the women."
Provided to Physorg.com by University of St Andrews
Conservative groups critical of the overhaul headed into the August recess with their own battle plans for the events, sending opponents of the Democratic approach to health care reform information like links to search engines and lists that relayed the locations of upcoming town halls; confrontational questions to ask members of Congress; and chants and slogans to use in and around the venues.
The increasingly tense face-offs have grabbed headlines, and national Democrats have spent the week highlighting reports of everything from rowdy crowds to physical assaults and death threats directed at lawmakers who are current or prospective backers of the president's plan.
Over the past few days, groups like Health Care for America Now, the AFL-CIO — which is describing the town halls as the "principal battleground" in the health care fight — and Organizing for America, the president's campaign arm at the Democratic National Committee, have sent supporters logistical tips for dealing with any hostile conservative presence at the town halls, and for organizing lobbying efforts to neutralize their impact.
OFA sent its e-mail list a message Thursday that pointed to the protests as a fresh hurdle that called for a concerted push to contact members of Congress in response. "The goal of these disruptions is for a few people to get a lot a media attention and hijack the entire public discourse," wrote executive director Mitch Stewart. The message identifies the lawmaker who represents the specific congressional district of the e-mail recipient, and provides contact information.
A new campaign by the group also asks supporters to make their presence felt at town hall meetings. "Our congressional representatives are back home this month, and they’re facing more and more pressure from special interests on health insurance reform. It’s critical that we get out there and show them where we stand," says an OFA e-mail.
HCAN – the massive umbrella organization that represents the lobbying effort on behalf of major progressive groups and unions like MoveOn, the NAACP, and the SEIU – has given its supporters instructions on their own set of defensive town hall tactics.
The group advises them to coordinate event-day strategy in advance with congressional aides; arrive far earlier than opponents and gather "in the front to create a wall around the Member"; and to assign individuals to shadow reporters and "be assertive in shaping the narrative." It provides suggested questions and possible chants to use in drowning out raucous opponents.
The instructions also offer "precautions to make sure that you can keep meetings you organize under control." Those guidelines include making sure attendees are "easily identifiable"; establishing a strictly-controlled question-asking protocol; and banning and collecting any signs and leaflets that they have not issued themselves.
"Plan for disturbances and assign marshals," say the guidelines. "Make sure that you assign marshals to take care of moving the crowd, keeping people organized and orderly, and acting as security should any need arise to ask noisy or disruptive protesters to leave. If you have cause to think that you will need more back-up, notify the police ahead of time."
Opponents of the Obama plan have taken note of the new efforts. Thursday afternoon, conservative blog RedState noted that a Democratic Florida congresswoman had scheduled a "last-minute town hall" in an effort to "avoid middle class workers opposed to Obamacare."
"She'll be surrounded by union goons from the SEIU to feed middle class voters to alligators if they dare criticize Obamacare," said the blog, which advised readers who lived in the area that "you should show up. Just remember, the union goons are going to do their best to pick fights with you so they can get video for TV a proof that you guys are a mob. Don't let them win, but get your questions asked."
Moderate Democrats and fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats in particular are being targeted with lobbying campaigns, millions of dollars in radio and television ads, and grassroots pressure from both parties and groups across the political spectrum over the August recess, as Congress continues to weigh the president's proposed overhaul of the nation's health care system.
I am a firm believer that Dolphins possess a language. I would like to read more on this finding. As you reading this, think about a marathon run, and all the body language that goes on with running and moving, could not a scientist make a claim that there is an entire language in the movements on the runners. It stands to reason that any life would use an energy efficient means of locomotion, as least as efficient as possible depending on the mode of movement. By nature conserving energy and efficient use is the rule. (I think here is a good place to make a call for mandatory nap time at places of work!!).
I also would like to have seen Dr. Cancho elaborate on his comparison of efficient Dolphin movements being like humans reducing picture size to save space. I am not sure about that comparison. Giving him the benefit, his explanation may have been edited by the news organization.
Over all a very interesting read though. ---JohnOh
from Telegraph.co.uk; online news; Earth > Wildlife section
As a general rule, the most frequently used words in human languages tend to be the shortest.
The same law applies to dolphins slapping their tails, diving, flopping sideways, and performing other movements when surface swimming, according to Spanish and British researchers.
"Patterns of dolphin behaviour at the surface obey the same law of brevity as human language, with both seeking out the simplest and most efficient codes," said Dr Ramon Ferrer i Cancho, from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain.
The "law of brevity" proposed by linguists holds that the most frequently used words – such as "the" and "but" - are also the shortest.
Dolphins appear to use the same "linguistic economy" in their swimming movements, say the researchers.
The creatures have a complex language that scientists are still far from understanding.
Although dolphins communicate mostly by means of audible clicks and whistles, experts believe they also employ body language when swimming close to one another.
Working with British colleague Dr David Lusseau, from the University of Aberdeen, Dr Ferrer i Cancho studied bottlenose dolphins living off the coast of New Zealand.
The scientists found that each movement pattern made by the creatures could be broken down into one or more of four basic units. For example, the "tail slap" pattern could be divided up into three sub-movements given the names "slap", "tail" and "two".
A pattern called "spy hop" was made up of the units "stop", "expose", and "head". In contrast, the "side flop" pattern only comprised "leap" and "side", while a movement dubbed "tailstock dive" consisted of only one unit, the "dorsal arch".
In total the researchers counted more than 30 patterns of behaviour and their related units. Dolphins were seen to execute many behaviour patterns made up of just one unit, and far fewer composed of four units.
The findings are reported in the journal Complexity.
"The results show that the simple and efficient behaviour strategies of dolphins are similar to those used by humans with words, and are the same as those used, for example, when we reduce the size of a photographic or video image in order to save space," Dr Ferrer i Cancho said.
