I don't normally do this

If you want to laugh, you absolutely must watch this clip

Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Field

Via Nature

Dance is believed to be important in the courtship of a variety of species, including humans, but nothing is known about what dance reveals about the underlying phenotypic—or genotypic—quality of the dancer. One measure of quality in evolutionary studies is the degree of bodily symmetry (fluctuating asymmetry, FA), because it measures developmental stability. Does dance quality reveal FA to the observer and is the effect stronger for male dancers than female? To answer these questions, we chose a population that has been measured twice for FA since 1996 (ref. 9) in a society (Jamaican) in which dancing is important in the lives of both sexes. Motion-capture cameras created controlled stimuli (in the form of videos) that isolated dance movements from all other aspects of visual appearance (including FA), and the same population evaluated these videos for dancing ability. Here we report that there are strong positive associations between symmetry and dancing ability, and these associations were stronger in men than in women. In addition, women rate dances by symmetrical men relatively more positively than do men, and more-symmetrical men value symmetry in women dancers more than do less-symmetrical men. In summary, dance in Jamaica seems to show evidence of sexual selection and to reveal important information about the dancer.

Sorry No Posts

Sorry I haven't been posting in awhile - I have been debating doing away with the whole blog. Mostly because the original Yin Yang concept has broken down. I will proably make up my mind sometime over Christmas break. Speaking of Christmas, I have been drafted to play piano at a church on Xmas day. Just one song; we'll see how it goes.

Battle in Baghdad

That's how I would promote a boxing match in Iraq. I only thought of this after I learned Don King is an ardent Bush guy.

Nearing the end

of the year. So it's time for 40 obnoxious quotes of 2005. My feeling is the list was put out too soon.

Winter Wonderland

For those of you in Chicago, you know what I'm talkin about. 8 inches! I love it. For tose of you familiar with Chicago, you might be intersted to know that Tom Skilling has a weather blog.