Sex ratio
cwilcox | February 28, 2010It's almost a given that, during any discussion about male infidelity, someone will throw out some variation of "men are biologically programmed to spread their seed."
Why is there this theory that men are more driven to cheat? Part of it has to do with the size of their gametes. If bigger is better, then men are pathetic, for their little sperm are 1/100th the size of a woman's egg. Because women have such a greater investment in each offspring right from the get-go, the assumption is that women are pickier when it comes to who they allow to fertilize their eggs. Men, since it doesn't cost…
razib | July 30, 2009Matt Yglesias pointed to this Forbes list of best cities for singles. Shouldn't one observe that the best city for men might not be the best city for women, and vice versa??? (sex ratio differences) Below the fold is the famous "singles map" from a few years back....
edyong | February 9, 2009This is the third of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial.
In our world, there is (roughly) one man for every woman. Despite various social differences, our gender ratio remains steadfastly equal, so much so that we tend to take it for granted. Elsewhere in the nature, things are not quite so balanced.
Take the blue moon butterfly (Hypolimnas bolina). In 2001, Emily Dyson and Greg Hurst were studying this stunningly beautiful insect on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu when they noticed something strange - almost all the butterflies were females. In…