Free Republic

It's tempting to think of the beard as a kind of "return to our ancestral roots" (ironic), but it's not quite as simple as that. Don't kid yourself, hairy paleo diet dude who just can't squeeze a shave between CrossFit sessions. Cavemen plucked their beards with clam shells, Little Mermaid-style, exhibiting a degree of care and attention that so many men today seem happy to dismiss. Men throughout the ages have oscillated between beard-having and not-having, from Alexander the Great's shaven soldiers, to the bushy-chinned Victorians. If the men in my life are anything to go by, there are several...

The second comes from The Atlantic’s Emma Green. Detailing the findings of a survey conducted by her magazine and the Public Religion Research Institute, she notes that 61 percent of white working-class men view college as a “risky gamble.” Green’s report contained this explanation: “The enduring narrative of the American dream is that if you study and get a college education and work hard, you can get ahead,” said Robert P. Jones, the CEO of PRRI. “The survey shows that many white working-class Amer­icans, especially men, no longer see that path available to them. . . . It is this sense of economic fatalism,...

In human development, certain genes act as master switches, ensuring that we are born with similar attributes (one head, two lungs, 10 fingers) in nearly all circumstances. Such genes tend to be highly reliable and resistant to environmental factors. Related But the gene responsible for activating male development is surprisingly unstable, leaving the pathway to male sexuality fraught with inconsistency, a study finds. The SRY gene on the Y chromosome sets off the growth of male sex organs in human embryos (all of which start out essentially female). To study the gene, researchers at Case Western Reserve University looked at...

A manmade ingredient of many plastics, cosmetics and other consumer products may be interfering with prenatal male sexual development, new research suggests. A study of 85 infant boys found a correlation between increased exposure to some forms of the chemical phthalate and smaller penis size and incomplete testicular descent. It is the first time phthalate has been shown to influence the sexual development of human males. "This is clearly something that needs to be examined in a larger sample," said Shanna Swan, a professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry who headed the study. A paper...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - How long a man's second finger is relative to his fourth finger appears to predict whether he is prone to be physically aggressive toward others, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. But it's not finger length that causes aggression, study author Allison A. Bailey warned in an interview. She explained that the important factor is the male hormone testosterone. Fetuses are exposed to various levels of this hormone in the womb, and research shows that men who were exposed to higher levels tend to have shorter second...