Do you know why a person needs eyebrows?

This is one of those questions about your own body that periodically come to mind by themselves. Especially when you look at your face in the mirror in the morning.

So why do we need eyebrows? They seem to be useless. Some, for example, shave them off, bleach them and live quite well. Well, in fact, eyebrows have several functions.

The most obvious appointment - protection of the eyes from drops of sweat, rain and other liquids flowing down the face. Due to their shape, the eyebrows allow you to distribute moisture so that it is directed closer to the temples or the bridge of the nose.

In addition, a person has a built-in reflex - to blink when something hits the eyebrows. This provides extra eye protection. Finally, eyebrows help scatter too bright sunlight if you tilt your head. It works, of course, not as well as dark glasses, but at least something.

However, researchers from the University of York in Canada found that the main function of the eyebrows is communication.

Our ape-like hominin ancestors had strongly protruding superciliary arches, but not such a developed facial expression. In our case, the forehead has become higher and smoother, and the eyebrows have acquired greater expressiveness and mobility.

This is partly due to a change in diet: with the development of civilization and agricultural technology, we have the opportunity to cook easily digestible food, and therefore now we have to chew less. And the development of the superciliary arches is directly related to the power of the jaw muscles.

But in addition, with their decrease, people have developed the ability to convey emotions with the help of eyebrows. Professor Paul O'Higgins of the University of York notesthat thanks to them we can show more than 20 mood options only by contracting or relaxing facial muscles.

This is a much more efficient and energy-saving way of communicating than screaming, chest punching, hooting, and other dances used by less developed species. Eyebrows can convey sympathy, and contempt, and skepticism, and surprise - in general, whatever you want.

In addition to expressing emotions and aesthetic function, eyebrows also play an important role in facial recognition. In one study, scientists asked group of people to identify 50 famous people, which included former US President Richard Nixon and actress Winona Ryder. Scientists retouched photographs, hiding either the eyes or the eyebrows.

Subjects managed to recognize famous faces when there were no eyes on them 60% of the time. However, when there were no eyebrows in the photographs, subjects could only identify the celebrity 46% of the time. As a result, scientists came to the conclusion that for the recognition of faces by our brain, this part is even more important than the eyes.

In general, people need eyebrows not only as protection from sweat, but also as a means of intraspecific communication.