High heels sharpen the female form

Question: If high heels are uncomfortable and make walking more difficult and prolonged use can injure the feet, knees and back, why do women keep wearing them?

Answer: The short answer would seem to be that women in heels attract more favorable notice, says Robert H. Frank in "The Economic Naturalist."

Author Jane Austen once described her character Elinor Dashwood as having a "remarkably pretty figure," but her sister was handsomer still, because though "her form was not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of height, she was more striking." In addition to making women taller, high heels force the back to arch, pushing the bosom forward and the buttocks rearward, thus accentuating the female form. And, wrote fashion historian Caroline Cox, "men like an exaggerated female figure."

Still, while it may be advantageous to be several inches taller than others, or at least not shorter, when all women wear height-enhancing shoes, such advantages tend to cancel out. "If women could decide collectively what kind of shoes to wear, all might agree to forgo high heels. But because any individual can gain advantage by wearing them, such an agreement might be hard to maintain."

Question: Baseball fans, try to imagine how your brain might behave at a game.

Answer: You certainly won't forget to take along your "prefrontal cortex," important for planning, reasoning, social cognition, says Jordan Grafman, PhD, in "Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans." This is the part responsible for retrieving knowledge about the other team and informing you what your beloved team must do to win. Bonding with friends at the game activates regions that release chemicals signalling feelings of pleasure. The prefrontal cortex also holds your sense of self, including memories of long-ago activities like playing ball in your youth.

More posterior brain regions concerned with visual, auditory and even tactile perception, plus the emotion-centered limbic system all become activated when you see the familiar green field, smell the hot dogs, hear "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." In that case, your brain's reward system pumps out dopamine, like the experience of downing a congratulatory beer (whose effects involve the same reward system). All in all, your brain gets you to return to the ballpark again and again.

Question: Can you figure the total length of all the hairs on an average woman's head?