Sexy voices and fertile women

Posted at 12:22 PM on May 1, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Surveys and trivia

Veteran News Cutters recognize I have a penchant for offbeat studies.

Fortunately, every day brings another fix.

Fertile Women Have Sexier Voices, the headline on the BBC Web site screams today.

Scientists have suggested that very subtle changes caused by the rise and fall of different sex hormones can be detected by men, who then perhaps find a woman more attractive without necessarily even realising why.

The latest research, from the State University of New York at Albany and originally published in the journal Human Evolution and Behavior, involved taking recordings of women counting from one to 10 at four points during the menstrual cycle and then played them back to male and female students.

"The missing link here is finding out how this works in plain conversation - in a bar, for example," says Dr David Feinberg, from the McMaster University in Canada.

And why do we need to know that?

---

Comments (5)

You had me at "1"

Posted by Jim | May 1, 2008 12:57 PM

---

///"The missing link here is finding out how this works in plain conversation - in a bar, for example," says Dr David Feinberg, from the McMaster University in Canada.///

missing link? duuuuh. Beer Goggles

I'm not even a doctor.

Posted by c | May 1, 2008 4:02 PM

---

bob asks
"And why do we need to know [whether a woman in a bar is fertile]?"

Clearly, you haven't been single in a while.

Posted by bsimon | May 1, 2008 4:13 PM

---

And here I've been letting myself hope that men have been evolving...

Posted by Jamie | May 1, 2008 6:40 PM

---

what does fertile mean

Posted by arrej | May 6, 2008 2:08 PM

---

Post a comment

The following HTML tags are allowed in your comments:
+ Bold: <b>Text</b>
+ Italic: <i>Text</i>
+ Link: <a href="http://url" target="_blank">Link</a>
Fields marked with * are required.

Name*:

E-mail Address*:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments*:

Comment Preview appears above this form upon pressing the "preview" button. Edit your comment and press "preview" again, until you are satisfied with your comment.

Your comment may not appear on the blog until several minutes after it was submitted.

• E-mail this page
• Print this page
• Save to Delicious
• Submit to Digg
• Share this

Services

• Hourly Newscast
• HD Radio
• iPhone App / Mobile
• E-mail newsletters
• RSS feeds
• Podcasts
• Submit your photos
• Videos
• Weather
• Most e-mailed stories

Become a Sponsor