Once again we confront the question of why women live longer than men do. While the conventional wisdom holds that after so many years of dealing with female craziness men are happy to die, Science has an alternative theory: Women are less disposable than men, i.e. we need them to stick around longer if we’re going to survive as a species.

In humans, as in most animal species, the state of the female body is very important for the success of reproduction. The fetus needs to grow inside the mother’s womb, and the infant needs to suckle at her breast. So if the female animal’s body is too much weakened by damage, there is a real threat to her chances of making healthy offspring. The man’s reproductive role, on the other hand, is less directly dependent on his continued good health.

It is too extreme to say that for all biology cares, males need only to attract a mate and then can pretty much die. A study of children in Tanzania, for example, showed that children who lost a father before the age of 15 tended to be a little shorter than their peers, and height is a reasonably good proxy for health. But children who lost a mother fared even worse — they were shorter, poorer and did not live as long as fatherless orphans. From an evolutionary point of view, however, the drivers of mating success for males are generally not the drivers of longevity. In fact, high levels of testosterone, which boost male fertility, are quite bad for long-term survival.

There is a solution that would allow men to match women in the longevity stakes, but it involves cutting their nuts out, so no. Anyway, as future generations of men develop increasingly smaller genitals due to environmental exposures and women finally establish control over business and statecraft, men will probably only be needed for sperm donation. Sit ’em down in front of a television, hook them up to some kind of seed extractor, and then get rid of ’em once they’ve outlasted their usefulness. Lucky bastards. I was definitely born too soon.

Happy 53rd birthday to the amazing Julian Cope.

Amy Jean Porter just produced a new print with 20×200. If you want one, it’s selling fast! She also recently finished 106 drawings for her first book, “Of Lamb,” a collaboration with poet Matthea Harvey, to be published in early 2011.

The Democratic party is angering voters will all its sneering elitism, says Ben Smith. They’d do better to acknowledge the innate wisdom of common folk. Say, for example, Indiana’s Norman Dennison, who feels this way about climate change: “It’s a flat-out lie. I read my Bible. He made this earth for us to utilize.” Or small-business owner Lisa Deaton, who says, “They’re trying to use global warming against the people. It takes way our liberty. Being a strong Christian, I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.” I mean, how can you argue with Jesus?

The video explains all. Apply within: nwktumblr@gmail.com. Or just mail it to 395 Hudson Street, NY NY 10014, ATTN: I WILL EDIT YOUR MAGAZINE THE BEST I PROMISE.

You’re on the Internet, right? Clearly you want to see the world’s longest domestic cat. Who am I to tell you no? Enjoy, freaks.

Photographer Garrett Ziegler is amassing the best collection of documentation of Williamsburg street art. My three faves.

“A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War — a claim rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down slavery’s role as a cause of the conflict. The passage appears in ‘Our Virginia: Past and Present,’ which was distributed in the state’s public elementary schools for the first time last month. The author, Joy Masoff, who is not a trained historian but has written several books, said she found the information about black Confederate soldiers primarily through Internet research…” The last line of this article is pretty killer.

Hoda Kotb

Sheldon Adelson

Taylor Swift

Larry Burstein

Simon Baker

Ina Garten

Aby Rosen

Molly Sims

Amanda Hearst

Bruno Mars

Minka Kelly

The six steps of the escape theory, or the stages a person goes through leading up to suicide. You might want to keep this one handy for future reference.