LATEST NEWS
18 August 2016
QLD Tall Poppy of the Year I was extremely delighted and honoured to be jointly named the Queensland Tall Poppy of the Year at a ceremony last night at the Queensland Museum. I'm really looking forward to continuing to promote and encourage an interest and engagement in science with in the education and community with the AIPS. Read about my fellow UQ awardees here. 3 August 2016 Three new publications in July It's been a busy month with two papers on beards accepted as well as a short encyclopaedia entry. Links will come up as soon as they are available online! You can check out the full list on my publications page. 1 July 2016
Website back up I've been a bit slack lately with my website but I'm pleased that I finally got around to getting it back up. I'll be updating it over the next few weeks with new publications, collaborators and projects you can participate in, so stay tuned! 20 November 2015
Australasian Science article on beards now out “Survival of the fittest” never applied to beards, so why did they evolve and what role do they play in mate selection in modern society? My article in Australasian Science Magazine 'Survival of the Sexiest' will appear as the cover story for the December 2015 issue. 1 May 2015
I've moved to the University of Queensland New position, new city, new department! For the next three years I'll be based out of the School of Psychology at UQ in Brisbane on a UQ Post-doctoral Fellowship. You can contact me via email or find my full contact details on the contact page of this site. 20 April 2014
The beard has struck the media again! Our newest paper in Biology Letters is in the media: Rob Brooks' piece in The Conversation, which has been picked up by The Guardian, ABC, BBC, Smithsonian Mag, Huffington Post, Huffington Post (Canada), Esquire and Science to name a few! 18 April 2014
Beards are sexier when they're uncommon Our newest paper in Biology Letters has received a lot of media attention lately! The research by former honours student Zinnia Janif, Rob Brooks and myself showed that the more beards there are, the less attractive they become thanks to an evolutionary phenomenon known as negative frequency-dependance. Negative frequency dependence simply means that rare traits enjoy an advantage. Janif, Z.J., Brooks, R.C., & Dixson, B.J. Negative frequency-dependant preferences and variation in male facial hair. Biology Letters. 2014 10 20130958; doi:10.1098/rsbl.2013.0958 (published 16 April 2014) If the scientific jargon isn't for you, then Rob also did an excellent piece in The Conversation called "Fear not the hipster beard: it too shall pass" that has been picked up by media around the world. Have you got some strong opinions about the beard yourself? Then why not participate in our latest study here. 1 November 2013
New papers in press Our paper on the effects of ambient temperature on the birth sex ratio in Australia in now in press in the journal Human Biology. We also have a new paper measuring women's visual attention to male bodies as they judge attractiveness in press in Evolution and Human Behavior. 8 October 2013
Australasian Evolution Conference The lab just got back from a great conference in Geelong last week - everyone gave fantastic talks ranging from mate choice copying to intra-sexual competition in women, including my own on "the evolution of men's secondary sexual traits". 30 July 2013
|