On the basis of visual assessment of figure drawings and front/profile images, past researchers believed that the waist-hip ratio (WHR) and the body mass index (BMI) were two putative cues to female physical attractiveness. However, this view was not tested on three-dimensional (3D) female images. In the present study, 3D images of 31 Caucasian females having varying body weights (BMI ranged from 16 to 35) were shown to 29 male and 25 female viewers, who were asked to rate the physical attractiveness. The results showed that the body volume divided by the square of the height, defined as volume height index (VHI), is the most important and direct visual determinant of female physical attractiveness. In determining the female attractiveness, human observers may first use VHI as a visual cue, which is also a key indicator of health and fertility owing to its strong linear relation to BMI. To fine-tune the judgement, observers may then use body proportions, the most important of which are the ratio of waist height over the chin height (WHC) (a measure of the length of legs over total tallness) and the deviation of WHR from the ideal ratio. It also appears that the effect of the body's physical parameters on the perception of female physical attractiveness conforms to Stevens' power law of psychophysics.Keywords: female physical attractiveness; body mass index; volume height index; body shape; deviation of waist-hip ratio; waist height-chin height ratio

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Based on 69 scanned Chinese male subjects and 25 Caucasian male subjects, the present study showed that the volume height index (VHI) is the most important visual cue to male body attractiveness of young Chinese viewers among the many body parameters examined in the study. VHI alone can explain ca. 73% of the variance of male body attractiveness ratings. The effect of VHI can be fitted with two half bell-shaped exponential curves with an optimal VHI at 17.6 l m À2 and 18.0 l m À2 for female raters and male raters, respectively. In addition to VHI, other body parameters or ratios can have small, but significant effects on male body attractiveness. Body proportions associated with fitness will enhance male body attractiveness. It was also found that there is an optimal waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) at 0.8 and deviations from this optimal WHR reduce male body attractiveness.Keywords: male body attractiveness; volume height index; body mass index; body proportion; waist-to-hip ratio INTRODUCTIONThe notion that male body attractiveness is a reliable indicator of male qualities was proposed by Wallace as an alternative to Darwin's good taste explanation (Cronin 1991). This alternative explanation assumes that: (i) a reliable connection exists between body attractiveness and male quality; (ii) male attractiveness is an indicator of some components of fitness such as health and vigour; and (iii) females detect and use this indicator for choosing a mate (Singh 1995b;Shackelford et al. 2000). In contrast to the considerable investigations of the female attractiveness (Singh 1993a(Singh ,b, 1994a(Singh ,b, 1995aFurnham et al. 1997Furnham et al. , 1998Tovée et al. 1998Tovée et al. , 2002, 2001Fan et al. 2004), less work is reported on the body attractiveness of males.The waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is considered as an important measure of the health of both men and women as it is related to the distribution of fat between the upper and lower body and the relative amount of intra-versus extraabdominal fat. The degree of obesity is positively correlated with WHR in both men and women (Hartz et al. 1984;Jones et al. 1986;Shimokata et al. 1989). The typical range of WHR for Caucasian men had been reported to be 0. 80-0.95 ( Jones et al. 1986;Marti et al. 1991).Singh (1995b) investigated the role of WHR in the male body attractiveness as viewed by females. In his study, 87 women volunteers (68 white and 19 hispanic) aged between 18 and 22 years ranked 12 line drawing stimuli of male figures representing four levels of WHR and three levels of body weight. The results showed that the stimulus whose WHR is 0.9 was overwhelmingly ranked as the most attractive out of all stimuli. This finding was also confirmed with German men in a separate study using the same line drawing stimuli. Maisey et al. (1999) considered two new body parameters in addition to WHR, namely waist-to-chest ratio

An extremely simple and effective colony PCR procedure is established for both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, yeasts, and microalgae. Among the four lysis buffers examined, Y-PER is observed to be more effective than Tris/EDTA, 0.2 % SDS, and 10 mM EDTA in the extraction of PCR-quality genomic DNA from those microorganisms. Vortexing or pipetting agitation of the cells in Y-PER for 5-10 s was sufficient to release genomic DNA for all the test bacteria and yeasts, and most microalgae. Additional incubation at 98 °C for 5 min for further cell disruption was essential only for Chlorella vulgaris due to its notoriously rigid cell wall.