Gentlemen, if you’ve ever been concerned about the size of your penis, take comfort in the fact that no matter how small it seems, it is one of the largest in the primate world.
An evolutionary biologist has compared the sizes of genitals of humans to gorillas and apes to look at why there is such a discrepancy between the species.
And he concludes the human penis may have grown so long to make it more conspicuous to potential partners, or even as a way of cooling the body down.
The relative size of the male reproductive organs across these species was discussed by evolutionary biologist Darren Curnoe in his latest ‘How Did We Get Here?’ video series for the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Gorillas have small penises and small testicles, while chimps have medium-sized penises and large testicles.
A mature male, a silverback, has exclusive reproductive access to the females in his group so his testes are small because there is no ‘sperm war’.
[SIZE=6]How to Poop Properly: A Total Game Changer[/SIZE] By Brian Leaf http://i.huffpost.com/gen/3046320/images/n-WOMAN-TOILET-628x314.jpg
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[/ul] [U]puborectalis muscle[/U], the muscle responsible for continence, relaxes only partially. But in a squatting posture, it releases completely. Basically, humans are designed not to leak, so in an upright position, there is a bend in our digestive tracts between the rectum and anus, that stops us from pooping, much like a bend in a garden hose stops the flow of water. A squat opens the pipes and frees the flow entirely. That’s why folks often need to push when sitting.
An Israeli researcher named [U]Dov Sikirov [/U]wondered about this and asked groups of study participants to defecate squatting over a container. He compared how long each bowel movement took and the effort required. Sikirov published his results in Digestive Diseases and Sciences and found that, in a squatting posture, subjects required, on average, only one-third the time to garner a movement. Plus, subjects who squatted rated the experience as much easier than did those who sat.
In Japan, researchers took this quite a bit further. For a [U]study[/U] published in the journal Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms, six subjects had their rectums filled with a contrast solution that could be seen under X-ray. The subjects then released the fluid from a squatting or a sitting position while being filmed with X-ray video. The videos showed that the anorectal angle increased significantly from 100 degrees to 126 degrees from sit to squat, making defecation much easier in the squat.
I’m eager to put a squat to the test, so I place a simple footstool at the base of the toilet. This elevates my feet eight or so inches off the ground and simulates a squat.
A few days in and the jury is out. All of the studies are spot on. A foot stool makes my morning meditation quicker, more complete, and, yet, effortless. The experience is sublime. No pushing. No waiting. Why poop through perpendicular plumbing? Who knows, I suspect one day footrests will be standard fare on toilets and posterity will scratch their heads at that strange dark time in history when folks sat straight up to poop.