Manly Noses Versus Womanly Noses

Manly Noses Versus Womanly Noses

David Chen
16 January 2014

University of Iowa
Published: 18 Nov 2013
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-men-noses-bigger-women.html

Summary:
            Why are men's noses larger than female's noses? A recent study from the University of Iowa seems to answer this question. After puberty, the male nose grows, on average, 10% larger than female noses in European descent. Researchers now believe that the difference in size correlates with the energy demand of the gender. Larger noses supply more oxygen, and males generally have more lean muscle tissue to support and grow, so the energy demand is higher. During puberty, males gain about 10% more weight in muscle mass than females. This also shows why other ancient humans, such as Neanderthals, had extremely large noses. They had more muscle and energy demand than modern humans, so the noses grew larger as a result of directional selection. Although the studies were only for people of European descent and ancient Europeans like the Neanderthals, the lead researcher says other populations of different origins should hold true, as the muscle mass in males versus females stays about the same throughout all the races.

Connection:
            This article connects with the evolution unit that we learned. The reason why men's noses were bigger throughout history was because of directional selection, a form of natural selection in which a trait got more and more expressed in a population because of it's advantages. In ancient humans, the males with bigger noses could support their large muscle mass better than others with smaller noses, and probably had a survival advantage, as they could hunt better or provide straight forward man-strength. This also connects back to our units on mitochondria and cellular respiration, as larger muscle mass meant more mitochondria, which went more oxygen was needed to proceed with aerobic processes.