Strange love: Being the odd one out makes you sexy

Researchers in Australia used beards to test a theory that some features become more desirable when fewer people have them. They showed women sets of pictures of men: clean-shaven, with stubble, or bearded, and had them rate the men’s attractiveness. Men with beards scored better when they were surrounded by clean-shaved faces, and vice versa, the study found.

“In some cases, rarity in ornamentation can be advantageous,” says the paper, which may explain a puzzle of evolutionary science. Under the theory of sexual selection, female animals choose mates with desirable features, which are often “advertised” through adornments such as colourful tail feathers in peacocks.