Declaring love boosts sex appeal

The secret to successful flirting is letting someone know how you feel

Telling someone you fancy ‘I really like you’ could make him or her find you more attractive, research suggests.

Making eye contact and smiling have a similar effect, says Aberdeen University psychologist Dr Ben Jones.

His study, involving 230 men and women, found such social cues – which signal how much others fancy you – play a crucial role in attraction.

The work will appear in Psychological Science and will be presented at the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool.

Romantic success

Dr Jones said singletons could use his findings to help prevent wasting time chatting up people who were clearly not interested.

“Combining information about others’ physical beauty with information about how attracted they appear to be to you allows you to allocate your social effort efficiently,” he said.

In other words, avoid wasting time on attractive individuals who appear unlikely to reciprocate.

Maybe one of the ways you learn your level of attractiveness is through how other people behave towards you Dr Lynda Boothroyd, a psychologist at the University of Durham

In the study, 230 men and women were asked to look at flash cards picturing a face with different expressions – making eye contact or not and smiling or not.

The volunteers were then asked to rate how attractive the faces were.

The preference for the attractive face was much stronger when people were judging those faces that were looking at them and smiling.

Dr Lynda Boothroyd, a psychologist at the University of Durham, said: “We like it when attractive people seem to be behaving positively towards us.

“And we seem to end up with people who are on our level in terms of attractiveness.

“Maybe one of the ways you learn your level of attractiveness is through how other people behave towards you.”

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Obama introduces Biden at rally

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has introduced veteran Senator Joe Biden as his running mate at a rally in Springfield, Illinois.

Mr Obama hailed Mr Biden as a “man with a distinguished record and a fundamental decency”.

Mr Obama confirmed his choice of running mate overnight on his website and with a text message after the news began to leak to the media.

The two men were making their first appearance following the announcement.

The Democratic campaign will be hoping Mr Biden’s presence will reassure voters who are concerned about Mr Obama’s relative inexperience, particularly in the international arena, says the BBC’s Rachel Harvey at the rally.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s camp called the choice of Mr Biden an admission by Barack Obama that he was not ready to be president.

His spokesman also picked up on a slip of the tongue Mr Obama made on stage when he introduced his running-mate as “the next president”.

Hugs and cheers

At the place where he launched his presidential campaign a year and a half ago, Mr Obama outlined Mr Biden’s accomplishments in the Senate, his blue collar roots and – above all – his experience on foreign policy.

OFFICE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT Second-highest executive officer in the United States Assumes the top role if the president cannot continue in office One of four statutory members of the National Security Council

“He’s an expert on foreign policy whose heart and values are rooted firmly in the middle class,” Mr Obama said.

He also emphasized Mr Biden’s drive for change, despite his 30 years spent in the Capitol.

“For decades, he has brought change to Washington, but Washington hasn’t changed him,” Mr Obama said.

He recounted the personal tragedy that struck Mr Biden more than 30 years ago, within days of his election to the Senate, when his first wife and their daughter were killed in a car accident.

After being introduced, a shirt-sleeved Mr Biden ran on to the stage and was embraced by Mr Obama to cheers from the crowd.

In his speech, Mr Biden referred to his own short-lived bid for the White House against Mr Obama for the 2008 nomination, before dropping out in January:

“You learn about a man when you debate with him, you see how he thinks. Barack Obama has the vision and courage to make this a better place. He is a clear-eyed pragmatist who will get the job done.”

At one point, Mr Biden garbled Mr Obama’s name, calling him “Barack America”. The crowd yelled back “Obama”.

Veteran politician

Mr Biden, a 65-year-old veteran lawmaker, is highly respected on foreign policy and is a six-term senator who serves on the powerful Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

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He has represented the state of Delaware in the US Senate since 1972.

Crucially, Senator Biden appeals to working-class Americans and was born in Pennsylvania, a key swing state in this election, our correspondent says.

Hillary Clinton, the former first lady who narrowly lost to Mr Obama during the tense battle for the Democratic nomination, issued a statement calling Mr Biden “an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant”.

John McCain has reportedly not yet settled on a running mate.

Mr McCain’s spokesman, Ben Porritt, suggested that Mr Obama’s slip in describing his running-mate as “the next president” reflected on his own inexperience.

“Barack Obama sounded as though he turned over the top spot on the ticket today to his new mentor…” he said in a statement.

“The reality is that nothing has changed since Joe Biden first made his assessment that Barack Obama is not ready to lead,” Mr McCain’s spokesman said.

Arctic Map shows dispute hotspots

VIEW THE MAP Maritime jurisdiction and boundaries in the Arctic region [1.01MB] Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader Download the reader here

British scientists say they have drawn up the first detailed map to show areas in the Arctic that could become embroiled in future border disputes.

A team from Durham University compiled the outline of potential hotspots by basing the design on historical and ongoing arguments over ownership.

Russian scientists caused outrage last year when they planted their national flag on the seabed at the North Pole.

The UK researchers hope the map will inform politicians and policy makers.

“Its primary purpose is to inform discussions and debates because, frankly, there has been a lot of rubbish about who can claim (sovereignty) over what,” explained Martin Pratt, director of the university’s International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU).

“To be honest, most of the other maps that I have seen in the media have been very simple,” he added.

“We have attempted to show all known claims; agreed boundaries and one thing that has not appeared on any other maps, which is the number of areas that could be claimed by Canada, Denmark and the US.”

Energy security is driving interest, as is the fact that Arctic ice is melting more and more during the summer Martin Pratt, Durham University

The team used specialist software to construct the nations’ boundaries, and identify what areas could be the source of future disputes.

“All coastal states have rights over the resources up to 200 nautical miles from their coastline,” Mr Pratt said. “So, we used specialist geographical software to ‘buffer’ the claims out accurately.”

The researchers also took into account the fact that some nations were able to extend their claims to 350 nautical miles as a result of their landmasses extending into the sea.

Back on the agenda

The issue of defining national boundaries in the Arctic was brought into sharp relief last summer when a team of Russian explorers used their submarine to plant their country’s flag on the seabed at the North Pole.

A number of politicians from the nations with borders within the Arctic, including Canada’s foreign minister, saw it as Moscow furthering its claim to territory within the region.

Mr Pratt said a number of factors were driving territorial claims back on to the political agenda.

“Energy security is driving interest, as is the fact that Arctic ice is melting more and more during the summer,” he told BBC News. “This is allowing greater exploration of the Arctic seabed.”

Data released by the US Geological Survey last month showed that the frozen region contained an estimated 90 billion barrels of untapped oil.

Mr Pratt added that the nations surrounding the Arctic also only had a limited amount of time to outline their claims.

“If they don’t define it within the timeframe set out by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, then it becomes part of what is known as ‘The Area’, which is administered by the International Seabed Authority on behalf of humanity as a whole.”