If you think you’ve got a good “gaydar”, that is, the ability to divine someone’s sexual orientation from a casual glance in their direction and nothing more, it may have less to do with some preternatural sixth sense and more to do with the shape of that person’s face, according to a new study.

The new study showed that people who identified as heterosexual tended to have more symmetrical faces than those who self-identified as homosexual. Furthermore, some 40 subjects were presented with photos of 60 people in the study by an evolutionary psychologist. Those asked to look at photographs of subjects considered those with symmetrical faces to be heterosexual more often than not.

“We were surprised to find that symmetry played a larger role than masculine/feminine features in assessing sexual orientation,” says the lead researcher, who notes that “the ability to assess the sexual orientation of others may be an adaptive trait. In terms of mate selection and romance, it’s crucial to recognize” sexual orientation. Furthermore, the study states:

“We found differences in measures of facial symmetry between self-identified heterosexual and homosexual individuals, [...] We also found that the more likely raters perceived males as being attracted to women (i.e. holding more of a heterosexual orientation), the more symmetrical the males’ facial features were.”

Though not statistically relevant, straight women tended to be more symmetrical.

They say beauty is based on symmetry. I’ve also heard women bemoan that “all the hot guys are gay”. Have hope, single ladies. Doesn’t look like that last part is true at all!

Do you have a good “gaydar”?

Think You Have a Good “Gaydar”? Here’s the Science Behind it… is a post from: The Inquisitr

I have been a comic book lover for years, I even owned my own comic store for awhile; talk about a kid let loose in a candy store, and when I first heard of Graphicly (previously Graphic.ly but they seem to have dropped the ‘ly’ domain extension) I will admit to being a little sceptical.

It wasn’t so much the idea of a web based comic book service but rather being more of aesthetics as I wan’t overly convinced that digital versions of our favorite reading material could be pulled off. I have checked out other offerings, from Marvel for example, but none of them hit my personal sweet spot when it came to reading my comics online.

Graphicly though, has through its platform iterations, been a pleasant surprise and now they have gone one step further and created a fantastic web reading experience using HTML5.  Additionally they have incorporated all the social features that you could want for sharing your favorite comic much as you can see from this screenshot of one of my favorite comics Witchblade.

If you want to get even more immersive in your reading you can go to full screen mode and enjoy the smooth transition between panels, as well as drill down into each part of the panels depending on your viewing options you will really be able to enjoy your reading experience.

For those of you that aren’t so fond of doing everything in your browser Graphicly also has a really nice cross-platform desktop app (AIR) which is my preference.

Now if you are more into the mobile aspect of reading your favorite comics Graphicly has apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, and Windows Phone but to be honest I didn’t enjoy the reading experience that much. It might be different on a tablet but I really believe that is the smallest form factor for enjoyable reading.

Anyway if you are a comic fan, and especially indie comics then head over to Graphicly and try out their apps, or the web version, with any of the many free comics that they have available. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

thanks to Louis Gray for the heads up on the HTML5 release

Graphicly brings your comic love to wherever you are – now with HTML5 goodness is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you’re suffering through small print on any document, book or other hard copy sources, there’s finally a wireless solution to help you through those hard reads.

The Wireless Page To TV Magnifier scans in real time the written words on each page you run it over, delivering those results to your TV via a wireless connection.

Words can be magnified up to 25X making it more easy in many cases to read a page from the comfort of your couch than it is directly from the pages full of small font you’re perusing.

The scanner works by grabbing all of the pages details, transferring that data to a base station which is plugged into your TV and then to the TV set itself, all in a split second you won’t even realize.

Page To TV Magnifier Debuts, Makes Reading Small Print Easy is a post from: The Inquisitr

A leaked WSJ ad, scheduled for Oct. 25th, has gadget bloggers buzzing about Barnes & Noble’s new e-reader, the Nook.

Running on Android, the Nook is said to be priced at Kindle’s $259 pricepoint. Many people have likened the device to a Kindle/iPhone hybrid, as unlike Kindle with a physical keyboard, the Nook has a touchscreen interface like the iPhone and iPod touch for navigating and browsing. The Nook also is rumored to support color, another advantage over Kindle. Coupled with a rumored deal for the device with Best Buy, Amazon might see their market share seriously sliding in the coming months. But the most intriguing of the rumors, in this era of gadget porn, is not even hardware related.

The first big tidbit is that books will be “heavily discounted”- without a qualifier, it’s difficult to say how impactful this aspect is. I’ve been very pleased with my iPhone Kindle app- the 6.39 pricepoint of most of the trashy vampire romances I favor is decent, but feels a bit like a jack at about a buck fifty less than the ink and paper counterparts Amazon would have to find, handle, wrap, pack, ship and of course, print on dead trees. But the even more intriguing aspect is that the Nook may allow for lending of titles between friends. One of the biggest hurdles the eBook format has in catching on is the inability to share books- the crunchy granola intellectual types that read books tend to like to pass them around between friends so they have something to discuss over soy lattes and cruelty-free hemp granola bars.

While Kindle’s got a tight grip on the e-reader market right now, the Nook sounds like it will be a powerful adversary as consumers make the leap away from analog books. Being perfectly honest, I’ve read more books in the past six weeks than I have in the past six years since downloading the Kindle app. And by December, the number of consumers using an e-reader is expected to double to 3.8 million from 1.6 million in August. Confirmation and more details are expected from B&N at 4pm EST during an event at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.

Update: B&N.com now lists the Nook, and does a specs rundown vs. Kindle.

[Image: Gizmodo]

Barnes & Noble’s Nook to incinerate Kindle? is a post from: The Inquisitr

The 2008 Kids and Family Reading Report by Yankelovich and Scholastic, however, is telling me otherwise. Take a look at these findings:

• 75% of kids age 5-17 agree with the statement, “No matter what I can do online, I’ll always want to read books printed on paper”

• 62% of kids surveyed say they prefer to read books printed on paper rather than on a computer or a handheld device.

The national survey covering children age 5-17 and their parents also revealed that kids who go online to extend the reading experience are more likely to read books for fun every day.

Watch the Kids & Family Reading Report presentation

Kids Believe Technology Will Supplement (Not Replace) Books is a post from: The Inquisitr