The most interesting fragment I read last night

by Tyler Cowen on July 29, 2007 at 7:55 pm in Science | Permalink

…a new study suggests our eyebrows serve to control how easily other people can tell where we are looking.

Here is more.

5 comments

zlguocius July 29, 2007 at 9:04 pm: What about the hypothesis that they collect sweat from your forehead before it drips into your eyes?
Yan Li July 29, 2007 at 9:18 pm: OMG, even eyebrows are for signaling. I wonder whether they can be plucked into a I’m-paying-strict-attention shape.
Brent Buckner July 29, 2007 at 11:09 pm: Multiple use.

Having had one eyebrow shaved off, I’ll attest to their sweat collection service.
Brad Hutchings July 30, 2007 at 2:53 am: Dogs don’t sweat, so why do they have eyebrows? But that aside, thanks to this post, I have developed an instant eyebrow fetish. Seriously, just watching 10 minutes of Flip that House on TLC, I’ve changed the way I look at faces. It’ll be interesting to see if I have the same outlook in the morning…
Yancey Ward July 30, 2007 at 12:14 pm: Brad Hutchings,

Interesting point about dogs, but I just looked at a number of pictures of different breeds of dogs didn’t see what I would call eyebrows. Maybe I need to look as some real life dogs. One might hypothesize that dogs have eyebrows now because of their long relationship with humans who probably unconsciously and selectively bread dogs that look more human.

I once shaved my eyebrows as a stunt along with some friends (don’t ask why). I can definitely tell you that sweat gets into your eyes much more easily without eyebrows- I was very relieved when they finally grew back.

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