inkbluesky

Good health and good fortune - why men find a leggy lady lovelier

Faced with the choice of two women of the same height, but with different leg length, they will tend to plump for the one with the longer legs.

It is thought that lengthy limbs are perceived as indicating good health, as well as social standing and the ability to be a good provider, New Scientist reports.

There did seem to be a limit. Legs they were 15% longer then the norm were considered poor prospects for child rearing. Women seem to have a preference for taller men in general, but guys that were of average height were considered better long term prospects as husbands. I’m not sure that men of average height or shorter will find much solace in knowing their mate finds tall men hotter, but their girlfriend chose them because they’re less likely to stray.

winter day 

Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision 

  Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

How do they get those microscopic parts ti fit together to form circuits. Well it pays to memorize those basic laws of science.

 The shape of each tiny component dictates which piece it can attach to, a microfabrication technique known as self-assembly. Capillary forces – the same type of forces that make water move up a plant’s roots, and that cause the edge of a glass of water to curve upward – pull the pieces into position.

circuit layer 

How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative. The title is overwrought as the people in the comments complained there is nothing about voting machines and paper trails and so forth, but interesting none the less. The interview does explain how veteran political operatives use appeals to emotion and the use of the media to manipulate people. He confesses that those appeals are not rational, they’re not about issues, they’re about putting bits and pieces of information together in a manner that pushes the right buttons. The voting machine stuff is important, but it is a problem that has relatively easy remedies. While getting people to think about issues and do research is much more difficult.