www.slate.com/.../
In a nutshell
"Anthropometric measurements of large populations show that systematic differences exist among blacks, whites and Asians. The published evidence is massive: blacks have longer limbs than whites, and because blacks have longer legs and smaller circumferences (e.g. calves and arms), their center of mass is higher than that in other individuals of the same height. Asians and whites have longer torsos, therefore their centers of mass are lower.
These structural differences, they argue, generate differences in performance. Using equations about the physics of locomotion, they analyze racing as a process of falling forward. Based on this analysis, they conclude that having a higher center of body mass in a standing position is advantageous in running but disadvantageous in swimming."
For most men, women tend to decrease sperm count. At least temporarily.
www.latimes.com/.../la-he-swimming-20100719,0,6313213.story
Ah, but the anticipation of women increases it. Especially those who we in the animal husbandry world refer to as novelty stimulus females, who are capable of inducing the Coolidge Effect:
One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times" was the reply. "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the rooster, he asked 'Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."
--A possibly true, possibly apocryphal anecdote widely related as a joke in the 1950's.
... In the 1940's and early 1950's, animal husbandry researchers trying to improve artificial insemination techniques in cattle made an interesting discovery. While attempting to increase semen production in prize-winning bulls, they learned what countless farmers had no doubt observed firsthand for millennia--that a bull apparently exhausted by sex will immediately find his vigor and sperm count restored to full potency if he is given a fresh cow to mate with. By continually bringing in new mates as soon as the bull's interest in a given cow begins to flag, the researchers could stimulate the bull into intromitting for days. This same behavior was soon found to exist in a host of mammalian species, from goats to rats to chimpanzees.
Originally, the phenomenon was known in the scientific literature as the Novelty Effect. But in the early 50's, two experimental psychologists, inspired by the famous presidential anecdote, casually referred to it at a scientific meeting as the Coolidge Effect. They expected to stimulate some laughter or at least some curiosity from their stolid peers. But evidently, everyone had heard the story already, and not so much as an eyebrow was raised by what must have seemed to them all a perfectly apt neologism. The term Coolidge Effect thereafter slipped quietly into the literature where it has remained ever since--a curious, and, at least to thinking mammals like me, somewhat depressing biological fact of bestial life.
{From my article, Do Men Need to Cheat, published in Glamour Magazine, 1987.} Short Answer: Probably not, but if given much encouragement, real or imaginary, then probably yes.
For most men, women tend to decrease sperm count. At least temporarily.
www.latimes.com/.../la-he-swimming-20100719,0,6313213.story
Ah, but the anticipation of women increases it. Especially those who we in the animal husbandry world refer to as novelty stimulus females, who are capable of inducing the Coolidge Effect:
One day the President and Mrs. Coolidge were visiting a government farm. Soon after their arrival they were taken off on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens she paused to ask the man in charge if the rooster copulates more than once each day. "Dozens of times" was the reply. "Please tell that to the President," Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the rooster, he asked 'Same hen every time?" "Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time." The President nodded slowly, then said, "Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge."
--A possibly true, possibly apocryphal anecdote widely related as a joke in the 1950's.
... In the 1940's and early 1950's, animal husbandry researchers trying to improve artificial insemination techniques in cattle made an interesting discovery. While attempting to increase semen production in prize-winning bulls, they learned what countless farmers had no doubt observed firsthand for millennia--that a bull apparently exhausted by sex will immediately find his vigor and sperm count restored to full potency if he is given a fresh cow to mate with. By continually bringing in new mates as soon as the bull's interest in a given cow begins to flag, the researchers could stimulate the bull into intromitting for days. This same behavior was soon found to exist in a host of mammalian species, from goats to rats to chimpanzees.
Originally, the phenomenon was known in the scientific literature as the Novelty Effect. But in the early 50's, two experimental psychologists, inspired by the famous presidential anecdote, casually referred to it at a scientific meeting as the Coolidge Effect. They expected to stimulate some laughter or at least some curiosity from their stolid peers. But evidently, everyone had heard the story already, and not so much as an eyebrow was raised by what must have seemed to them all a perfectly apt neologism. The term Coolidge Effect thereafter slipped quietly into the literature where it has remained ever since--a curious, and, at least to thinking mammals like me, somewhat depressing biological fact of bestial life.
{From my article, Do Men Need to Cheat, published in Glamour Magazine, 1987.} Short Answer: Probably not, but if given much encouragement, real or imaginary, then probably yes.
