Finally, a slither of good news in the plight of short men. A new academic paper has raised the suggestion that women should reproduce with the vertically challenged, for the good of the species.

According to the research, published in the journal Nature, the greater the size difference between the sexes, the higher the chance of that species becoming extinct. Could the long-established trend for women to seek tall men be a danger to the existence of humanity?

Well, maybe not. Before you rush to update your online dating profile (men are said to exaggerate their height by an average of two inches), it should be noted that the research was conducted on extinct crustaceans. It's unlikely to change the mating habits of humans any time soon.

In truth, vertigo-inducing height is an established measure of status in the Western world – a learning that's drilled into men from childhood. Commenting on a child's height at a family get-together is the equivalent of saying ‘what do you do?’ at a cocktail party: a conversational ice-breaker that betrays our inner, competitive fascination with social markers.

I speak from experience. As a kid of below-average height, I fared poorly in those conversational ice-breakers. Upon entering a new household, my friends would be greeted by whooping rounds of ‘my, how you’ve grown!’ only for the adults to awkwardly splutter out a business-like ‘um, how good to see you’ when it came to my turn.