Science!

From the Associated Press...

Study: Flamboyant male dancing attracts women best

"John Travolta was onto something. Women are most attracted to male dancers who have big, flamboyant moves similar to the actor's trademark style, British scientists say in a new study."

Sweet!

"Kris McCarty and colleagues at Northumbria University and the University of Gottingen in Germany asked 19 men aged 18 to 35 who were not professional dancers to dance in a laboratory for one minute to a basic drum rhythm."

Using professional dancers would would have threatened the integrity of the test. And did you say laboratory?

"They filmed the men's movements with a dozen cameras, and then turned those movements into computer-generated avatars so the study could focus on moves, not appearances."

Annoying Joe has obtained a photo of the control group...

"Scientists then showed the dancing avatars to 37 women, who rated their skills on a scale of 1 to 7. According to the women, the best dancers were those who had a wide range of dance moves and focused on the head, neck and torso."

As opposed to the ankle, back and spleen...

"'In principle, it is possible to break down the motion patterns that are informative and attractive to women,'" said Rufus Johnstone, a reader in the evolution of animal behavior at Cambridge University."

"Johnstone said there were similarities between animal mating rituals and what happens in modern dance clubs."

True, true...

"'There are lots of cues females use when choosing a mate, like a peacock puffing out its tail,'" he said. "'Dancing for humans could signal whether a male is fit because it requires the expenditure of a lot of energy."

Finally, the study advises...

"...dancers to improve their core body moves..."

and...

"men who are bad dancers shouldn't despair..."

Don't worry, I won't. It's relief enough to know that academia has a handle on the whole dancing thing. Now if they could just do something about that pesky cancer...