h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The front and middle seats of the bus today were occupied by elderly gentlemen, so I sat near the back and gazed absently at the backs of their heads all the way to town. And I wondered: do people's ears grow as they get older, or is it that their heads shrink?

Ears (and noses) go on growing as you age. It's because of the type of cartilage tissue from which they are made. In an effort to get more doctors involved in and appreciating scientific research (if only minimally), they had a large number of GPs measure people's ears and then collate the results to get an average rate. I'm not sure if I can find the reference again though. It has to be about a year ago or so that I came across it.

I just knew you'd be the one to provide the answer!

my nose is too big already (IMO)

I remember an article in New Scientist where they showed a future human. We would all have longer legs by then as well!

I learnt at school that noses and ears keep growing - something to look forward to isn't it?!

Not IMO, B'cat. You have a fine piece of nose there.

I wonder if the continued growth helps to counteract encroaching deafness and loss of smell. SEF? Kaz?

I'd call it a side-effect resulting from the undirected nature of evolution which led to the formation of those structures in that way in the first place. However, the symmetry/asymmetry of ears is used as a subconscious sexual cue and the length (and shape) of nose (and possibly ears) is even overtly a symbol of authority (NB that's with age being implicitly but erroneously regarded as a reliable indicator of wisdom and thus a suitable target for simplistic bestowal of authority).

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Ye gods!!!! So, if one's bigger than the other, is this good or bad?

I shall be looking at people's lug'oles very closely now. What implication does this have for Spock & various i wonder?

zdt

It's not as extreme as that! The positioning (and proportions) of features on the face is not only indicative of general health for both sexes but actually subtly changes during the female menstrual cycle. They look at their most attractive when fertile. Aromatic hormonal cues are quite a separate subconscious factor (photographs were used for the face studies). The effect is miniscule yet still enough to make a difference in how people score (both on the test and presumably in real life).

Since Spock's and other vulcan's ears were prosthetic, you'd have to ask the make-up artists whether they did anything differently for the Pon Farr episodes. Ears were explicitly stated to be important to the Ferengi though, by the time of DS9. In other genres, ElfQuest elf relationships work somewhat differently anyway. Whereas traditional faerie elf stories don't tend to go into that sort of detail.

You see this face?

That's my sceptical face.

I have yet to see a study of what constitutes 'attractive' that isn't over-simplified to the point of baloney. The symmetry one in particular is an utter load of codswallop. And whilst I agree that symmetry can look good when combined with things like a smile, a nice way of moving, good personal hygiene and so on, I'm a very long way from being convinced that it is more attractive than quirkiness.

Age I can understand as being a symbol of authority, but a big nose Where does that come from?

Romans for example. Then there are those proboscis monkeys ...

Romans defnitely thought less of someone who had say a Celtic snub nose
Test after test has shown IIRC has shown that our ideal of beauty is actually pretty bland and average, more lack of flaws and conforming to the norm than anything else

I have huge lobes as it is now ...I guess I shall have to get more piercings then

I actually did know that about ears....for a change!

My nose and ears are oversized though thankfully my ear don't stick out, they're just larger than the average ear...

This talk of ears and noses has made me remember that my nose used to be even more a sensative erogenous zone as my ears remain... Odd place to get arousing sensations from...

OK, figure this out then. I seem to "go for" a specific type of guy as far as physical stuff goes, very few exceptions. I am a heterosexual female (well...except for fantasies & stuff) & always my partners have long hair, slim, tall, and have light eyes, blue or green.

I have talked about this in RL with people, we agree that maybe women who go for men with long hair are probably into sensitive creative artistic types, but what about the eyes thing? I just dissolve when faced with the light eyes; is this 'cos i have very dark brown eyes & am genetically looking to mingle the gene pool? Maybe my dad had light eyes, dunno, he is dead & i have no photos; they say you look for your parent don't they?

zdt

I'm a bisexual male.
I've never met my father, but I do tend to prefer the older man and usally white and 'healthy' as opposed to slim or muscular or athletic... generally prefer a taller guy but there are of course exceptions...

As for women, well my mother is short, blonde and blue-eyed... I find green, hazel or brown eyes most attractive, green hair too, but as for natural colour darker colours followed by blonde really don't like red... And I'm 6ft tall and like to be able to look into a girls eyes or at least not over her head... but there are of course exceptions...

It could be argued that my mother didn't always meet with great sucess at being a caring or sensitive mum. So some might use that to explain that I prefer that in a partner to distant and unaffectionate people...

GREEN HAIR! hell, that narrows your choices down a bit!

No, sorry; seriously, the parent stuff probably does matter a lot. My Mum was an absolute swine to me & i probably have bad memories of looking into her brown eyes & waiting for something bad to happen, whereas by all acoounts my dad was extremely kind & the caregiver until he died when i was 3. So *if* he had light eyes, i would presumably associate this subconsciously with good stuff.

Whatever, whatever, we just go when faced with certain people don't we? Unfortunately the factor might not be followed up by
the sensitive and affectionate bit....*sigh*



zdt

What an interesting thread this has become! It's fascinating finding out what my Hootoo friends' 'types' are.


Far and few, far and few
Are the lands where the Jumblies live.
Their heads are green and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

[Edward Lear]


I saw a documentary about a year ago, which looked at attraction in humans. It went through a whole bunch of experiments that had been done to ascertain what people go for. I was surprised by the glaring gaps in research but, though I don't remember a lot about the programme now, I remember some interesting conclusions it came to. Apparently there are two major attraction factors: in-group and out-group. So on the one hand, people are attracted to looks with which they are familiar (could be their parents, or their peers, or the people they spend most time with); on the other hand, we're attracted to the exotic, the different, the unknown. Which we go for depends on a variety of social factors. For example, in Iceland, where the gene pool is relatively small, it's said that the women far prefer foreigners to Icelandic men. The programme implied that our decisions in choosing partners were based subconsciously on reproductive concerns; where that leaves gay relationships, I don't know.

Heck knows what my type is. I think I'm extremely fussy, but I'm not sure what my criteria are exactly. None of my previous partners look anything like each other--but they've all been creative, introspective, eccentric and inspiring. I seem to go for assertive women with loose morals, and men who make me laugh. Possibly. (Gothly is assertive, tarty, funny *and* all the other things I said.)

"we just go when faced with certain people don't we?"

Oh yes! Irish and Jamaican accents have me weak at the knees. Ghaaaaa....

It's my theory that everyone is bisexual... But people lie on a curve of bisexuality... so you have some at what would be regarded as a hetrosexual extreme and some on the homosexual extreme... It makes sense for social animals to develope bisexuality.

That's an interesting theory. It makes a lot of sense. Someone's bound to have done a study on that kind of thing. I'll look it up, if I remember.