A courtship dance of the Bilaan, a Filippino hill tribe of the Davao del Sur region, simulates the mating behaviour of forest birds. It starts with two richly-plumed males eyeballing three females. The females scamper to safety, covering their heads with a tubular cloth called ‘malong’ that represents the wings. But the aggressive males are always behind them. It stirs us to think about the evolution of dance as an ensemble of courtship signals and its extension to human ethology.
Since, ultimately, any kind of biological adaptation is to be equated with reproductive success, the correlation between a male’s (avian or human) dancing skills and his success in courtship games is an interesting topic. Is there a special type of anatomy that’s likely to create a winning dancer? Suppose somebody films more than fifteen dozens of Jamaican teenagers dancing for a while, and use motion capture technology to capture their exact movements in computer-animated figures. Well, which of them do you like best?
Even if you know all the dancers personally, the figures don’t betray their identities. They appear faceless and gender-neutral. So your preferences are strictly based on just the way dance – bodies and movements. You look for anatomical qualities. Symmetry, for instance. This you rate by matching their elbows, wrists, knees, ankles, feet, ears, and fingers – precisely third, fourth and fifth. Investigating along these lines, American researcher Dr William Brown and his team made a discovery. Dancing ability is related to symmetry. Males overwhelmingly prefer dances performed by symmetrical females, who in turn prefer dances by symmetrical men.
It is a bit more complex than it sounds, because in species where fathers invest less than mothers in their offspring, females tend to be more selective in mate choice. This creates a situation, be it evolutionary or cultural, where males tend to invest more in courtship display. Symmetrically superior men put on a better show, and women take note. In Dr. Brown’s study, “symmetrical males were evaluated as significantly better dancers than asymmetrical males, accounting for 48% of the variance in dance ability”.
Interestingly, the interaction between sex, symmetry and dancing skills is not equally strong in women. Symmetrical women were significantly better dancers than their asymmetrical peers in the study, but symmetry factor accounted for only 23 per cent of their dance ability. But why symmetry is so crucial is yet to be understood. The performance of attractive dances asks people to be more rhythmic, more energetic, more energy efficient — any combination of these factors.
SNEAK PREVIEW
A REMOTE LIE DETECTOR
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DoD or The US department of Defense is busy developing a special kind of a lie detection system. The new technology is expected to work even remotely on people, especially on the non-co-operative types who are suspected of espionage or terrorism – and they will not even know that they are being watched and studied. Called ROP, short for Remote Personnel Assessment, it will use microwaves or laser beams to reflect off a suspect person’s skin to detect signs of stress and various physiological parameters without any direct contact. The beams will monitor heart rate and “galvanic skin responses,” the way traditional lie detectors do.
AGUIRRE’S SERENITY PANEL
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Inventor and Vidstone founder Sergio Aguirre has come up with a solar-powered video panel that gets embedded into a headstone. The ‘Serenity Panel’ (that’s the device’s name) has been around some time now, but it needed an Aguirre to make an improved and durable version that is built to last at least 15 years. Four hours of sunlight provides up to 90 minutes of continuous video. Visitors to your ‘site’ flip open the solar panel and watch quite a collection of images and audio approved by family and friends on a 7-inch shatter-resistant LCD screen.
QUIZ No.215
1. If Mary Quant invented the miniskirt, her inspiration was …
– A parachute
– An automobile
– A cathedral bell
– A lamp shade
1. An automobile (the Mini Cooper).
2. What item in the list is named after the Roman goddess Venus?
– V formation
– Vernier system
– Venereal diseases
– Vernacular talk
2. Venereal disease (from Veneris, a Latin form of the name of the love goddess)
3. This man’s book about his own bank frauds was made into a Steven Spielberg movie.
– Shiloh Quinn
– Frank Abagnale
– Dennis Paul Lewis
– Slobodan Milosevic
3. Frank Abagnale (the movie is ‘Catch Me If You Can’)
4. Loud guitars and big suspicions belong to this singer.
– Shakira
– Shirley Bassey
– Shannon Curfman
– Shania Twain
4. Shannon Curfman (whose first album was ‘Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions’ )
5. Robert D. Buchanan’s pioneering work was related to …
– GM Food
– Quantum optics
– Color cartoon for TV
– Glass Furniture
5. Color cartoon for TV