What makes us attractive?

The secret of beauty and attractiveness has been a quest of humans for as long as we have been civilized. Many women (and some "metrosexual" men) spend up to one-third of their income on looking good. Why?

Besides being popular, beautiful people get special attention from teachers, the legal system and employers. Good-looking people tend to make more money than their plain-Jane counterparts, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Researchers found that beautiful people tend to earn 5 percent more an hour than their less comely colleagues. If that weren't enough, the Fed also discovered a "plainness penalty," punishing below-average-looks with earnings of 9 percent less an hour.

While we instinctively know what appeals to our own sense of beauty -- we know it when we see it -- defining what determines attractiveness is not always easy. In frustration, we often give up and claim that "beauty is in they eye of the beholder." But is beauty really a personal phenomenon?

Recent studies have shown that the secret of beauty may at last be understood. It seems that attractiveness may be hard wired in our brains.

Experiments designed to measure attractiveness usually involve showing a series of images of human faces and asking subjects to rate their visual appeal. Surprisingly, people from a variety of different ages, races and cultures agree on what is and isn't beautiful. Babies as young as 3 months can identify and prefer faces that most adults would deem beautiful. Europeans can pick out the same beautiful Japanese faces as Japanese subjects; Japanese can agree on which European faces another Europeans will view as beautiful. In fact, humans can even agree on the attractiveness of monkey faces, thus ruling out most unique racial, cultural and even species influences. So what's going on?

Facial recognition is a complex process. Only recently, with the need to spot criminals and terrorists, computer facial recognition programs have been developed to analyze the subtle variations of such things as the space between our eyes, the size of our noses and the proportions of our facial features. Scientists have discovered certain mathematical facial proportions that identify beautiful people. But is there more to beauty than the mere arrangement of eyes, noses and chins?

Our brains seem to do much more than simply recognize a beautiful face. Most people can assess emotions, personality traits and fertility -- as well as beauty -- almost instantaneously. In fact, the human brain has special part called the fusiform, located in the back of the head near the spine. It's the same neural pathway needed to recognize faces of family, friends and people we have met. When it's damaged, the patients cannot recognize anyone, even people they has just met. Also, in experiments, they cannot discriminate between photographs of plain and beautiful faces.

Studies show that when we recognize a face as "beautiful" we are actually making a judgement about the health and vitality of that individual. We interpret facial symmetry (the similarity of left and right halves of a face) and the smoothness of the skin to mean that a person has good genes and has been free from diseases. This is part of what we mean by "beautiful" but it is just the beginning.

Studies have shown that facial symmetry is one of the best observational indicators of good genes and healthy development and that these traits are what we mean when we say someone is attractive. Look at these examples below.

China old beauty

While it is not practiced anymore and was a trend that died out over the centuries, foot biding was a common practice of the upper class in China.  Beginning at a young age, girls would begin the painful process of tightly binding their feet so that they would no longer grow.  Binded feet was seen as erotic in Chinese culture and it was believed that women with binned feet would have a prosperous marriage.  What binding feet actually caused was the restrictions of women to partake in a social life due to the limitations of mobility.

Definition of beauty

Tastes as preferences around the world/ Concepts of beuty around the world

Hi, I'm back, this time I'll talk you about the concepts of beuty around the world, hope you enjoy it.

Hey this will be my last post so i want to thank to everyone who read me :) see you later :)

Ways to say hello in differente languages

1. Say hello in Albanian: Hello in Albaian is Tungjatjeta, pronounced "toon-jah-TYEH-tah," which literally means "have a long life." A shorter, more informal way to say hello is Tung, pronounced "toong". Albanian is spoken mainly in Albania and Kosovo, though it is also spoken in other areas of the Balkans.
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   Say hello in Austrian German: Grüßgott, pronounced "gruus got", is a formal way to say hello in Austria, which literally translates as "salute to God". The informal way to say hello is Servus, pronounced "SEHR-voos". German Austrian is an official dialect of standard German, which is spoken in Austria, as well as the province of South Tyrol in Italy.
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   Say hello in Basque: kaixo (pronounced kai-show), egun on (morning; .pronounced egg-un own), gau on (night; pronounced gow own)
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   Say hello in Belarusian: Hello in Belarusian is Вiтаю, pronounced vee-tie-yu. Belarusian is the official language of Belarus, but is also spoken in Russia, Ukraine and Poland.
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   Say hello in Breton: Hello in Breton is degemer mad. Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany in the northwest of France.
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   Say hello in Bulgarian: Hello in Bulgarian is zdravei when speaking to one person and zdraveite when speaking to many. Zdrasti is a more informal way to say hello.
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   Say hello in Bosnian: Hello in Bosnian is dobar dan, pronounced "DOH-bahr dahn". More informal ways to say hello are zdravo, pronounced "ZDRAH-voh" or merhaba, pronounced "MEHR-hah bah". Bosnian is the official language of Bosnia and is essentially the same language as Croatian and Serbian. All three languages used to be known as Serbo-Croatian before the break-up of Yugoslavia.
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   Say hello in Catalan: Hello in Catalan is hola, pronounced "o-la". Bon dia, pronounced "bon dee-ah" means "good morning", bona tarda, pronounced "bona tahr-dah" means "good afternoon" and bona nit, pronounced "bona neet" means "good night". You can also say just bones, pronounced "bo-nahs" to say an informal hello.
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    Say hello in Croatian: Hello in Croatian is bok. Dobro jutro means good morning, dobar dan means good day, dobra večer means good evening and laku noć means good night.
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    Say hello in Czech: Hello in Czech is dobrý den, pronounced "DOH-bree dehn". A more informal way to say hello is ahoj, pronounced "ahoy". Czech is a Slavic language which is mutually intelligible with Slovak.
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    Say hello in Danish: Hello in Danish is hallo, or informally hej, pronounced "hi". Danish is a Scandinavian language spoken in Denmark and in some parts of Greenland.

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2. Say hello in Dutch: Hello in Dutch is goedendag or simply "hallo". Hoi, meaning "hi" is also used informally. Dutch is a Germanic language spoken in the Netherlands and northern Belgium.