February 15, 2006 Big testicles equals tiny brains by Gulliver
Ladies, we know you're known it for thousands of years, but
now it's official. Big testicles equals tiny brains.
A recent study of bats has shown that shown that nature forces
the males of a species to make a biological trade-off between
brains and sperm.
Due to the high energy demands of both, males cannot generate
large amounts of both.
The discovery of the link between testicle and brain size
was made by scientists from Syracuse University in New York,
who studied more than 300 species of bats.
Some female bat species are unusually promiscuous, so males
evolved enormous testicles to compete with suitors - but at
the expense of brain capacity.
In less promiscuous species, in which the female is guarded
by a single partner, male bats had relatively large brains.
The research team, led by Dr Scott Pitnick, believe this phenomenon
is explained by their "expensive tissue" hypothesis.
"Because relatively large brains are metabolically costly
to develop and maintain, changes in brain size may be accompanied
by compensatory changes in other expensive tissues,"
wrote Dr Pitnick in a scientific journal.
The researchers believe this theory would explain the brains/sperm
trade-off found in bats.
But intelligent men should not despair over the size of their
manhood. Science may think it has settled the argument about
size mattering, but the debate about quality over quantity
still rages on.
