How Big Is The Average Penis?

For me, or people everywhere, who have wondered about this, a new and extensive survey of all the studies so far has the result.

Published today in the British Journal of Urology International, their new study synthesizes data from 17 previous academic papers that included measurements from a total of 15,521 men from around the world. The data enabled the researchers to calculate averages and model the estimated distribution of penile dimensions across humanity. “It still just strikes me how many men have questions and insecurities and concerns about their own penis size. We actually do need good data on it,” says Debra Herbenick, a behavioral scientist at Indiana University, Bloomington, who was not involved in the study.

According to the team’s analysis, the average flaccid, pendulous penis is 9.16 cm (3.61 inches) in length; the average erect penis is 13.12 cm (5.16 inches) long. The corresponding girth measurements are 9.31 cm (3.66 inches) for a flaccid penis and 11.66 cm (4.59 inches) for an erect one.

So there ya go! Get out your ruler, measure, and compare!

Zz.

Geographer Had Predicted Osama In Abbottabad

An amazing prediction by a UCLA Geographer and his students on the possible location of Osama Bin Laden as far back as in 2009.

...... predictions of UCLA geographer Thomas Gillespie, who, along with colleague John Agnew and a class of undergraduates, authored a 2009 paper predicting the terrorist’s whereabouts, were none too shabby. According to a probabilistic model they created, there was an 80.9% chance that bin Laden was hiding out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed last night. And they correctly predicted that he would be in a large town, not a cave.

And it's not as if they were using some classified information or techniques to make such a prediction.

“It’s not my thing to do this type of [terrorism] stuff,” he says. “But the same theories we use to study endangered birds can be used to do this.”

A lot of knowledge is interrelated like that. So one could study endangered birds, and the same mathematical formalism can be used in a military operation. Or one could study transport phenomenon in solids, and apply it to the financial markets. Not unheard of.

Zz.

Men Used To Have Penises Studded With Hard Spines?

OUCH!

An interesting new investigation has revealed a molecular mechanism on how human males evolved into having smooth penises, rather than penises studded with small, hard spines such as those in our closes cousins, the chimps {link open for free only for a limited time}.

They first systematically identified 510 DNA sequences missing in humans and present in chimps, finding that those sequences were almost exclusively from the non-coding regions of the genome, between genes. They then homed in on two sequences whose absence in humans they thought might be interesting — one from near the androgen receptor (AR) gene and one from near a gene involved in tumour suppression (GADD45G).

Inserting the chimpanzee sequences into mouse embryos revealed that the former sequence produced both the hard penile spines and sensory whiskers present in some animals. The latter sequence acted as a kind of brake on the growth of specific brain regions — with the removal of its function appearing to have paved the way for the evolution of the larger human brain.

This study is published in Nature (McLean, C. Y. et al. Nature 471, 216-219 (2011)).

Zz.