As well as being a fantastic piece of machinery (Do the maths) the body comes in a dazzling variety of shapes, sizes and colours (The shape we’re in), all crafted by millions of years of evolution in different settings. Today, the environment we live in still profoundly influences our body shape (Supersize me), starting before we are even born (Life sentence). It has transformed bodies in industrialised nations dramatically over the past half-century (In your dreams), making westernised ideals of physical perfection seem ever more outlandish (Vital statistics). The pressure to conform might explain some of the strange things we do to our bodies: from our love-hate relationship with body hair (Smooth operators) to our demands for increasingly drastic alterations (Extreme surgery). Even old or broken parts can be made as good as new, or better (Bionic bodies). Love it or hate it, your body says a lot about you. Your build dictates what kind of Olympian you might be (Built to win), while deceptively innocuous things such as the length of your fingers can reveal a startling amount about your sex appeal (Secret signals). Read all about it.
To continue reading, today with our introductory offers
Advertisement
More from New Å®ÉúСÊÓÆµ
Explore the latest news, articles and features

Life
The Selfish Gene at 50: Why Dawkins’s evolution classic still holds up
Features

Life
Intoxicating and astonishing: Why 'The Selfish Gene' almost never was
Features

Comment
After news about Oliver Sacks's "lies", we revisit his best-loved book
Culture

Life
We may finally know why dinosaurs like T. rex evolved tiny arms
News
Popular articles
Trending New Å®ÉúСÊÓÆµ articles
1
The distant world that is our best hope of finding alien life
2
Mystery of the ancient giant stone jars of Laos may have been solved
3
The ‘doomsday’ glacier’s giant ice shelf is about to break away
4
We may finally know why dinosaurs like T. rex evolved tiny arms
5
Wind-assisted cargo ships could more than halve shipping emissions
6
The 3 things you need to know about protein, according to an expert
7
How I used psychology to come back from the worst year of my life
8
Why autism pioneer Uta Frith wants to dismantle the spectrum
9
Rebooting stem cells builds aged muscles and assists injury recovery
10
Solar farm on the ocean outperforms land-based solar in Taiwan