Have you ever wondered what kind of breasts our ancestors preferred? Well, researchers at Prague’s Charles University had the same question, and you’re in luck! They’ve come up with an answer.

If someone put a gun to your head and asked you to explain why we’re so naturally attracted to larger breasts, the chances are you’d refer to the indicator of high fertility that a larger bosom would imply. Human evolution researchers at Charles University wanted to test that. The researchers found 267 participants from Brazil, Cameroon, Czech Republic and Namibia, and presented to them two sets of images, checking for preferences in size and firmness, which would indicate potential fertility as well as residual fertility. Imagine yourself in that situation (like you already aren’t): surely the biggest, firmest boobs would be the most preferred?

Well, you’re half right. Researchers found data that reflected an all-round preference for firmness regardless of size, creed or colour, but medium-sized boobs won out over their more voluminous competitors. Why? Researchers believe it’s to do with the idea of residual fertility over potential fertility, and bigger boobs would accentuate any drop in firmness a lot more prominently than someone with a smaller set. Your partner’s big breasts are, of course, less attractive when she’s tripping over them on her way to answer the door, and it’s this idea of potential fertility against the here and now which might cause us to prefer medium-sized breasts over massive ones. In the future, the researchers at the University of Charles want to run the test again, but this time, focus on “a potential interaction between the two parameters, breast size and firmness, which, taken together, may help to explain the relatively large variation in women’s breast sizes.”

If they’re looking for potential test subjects, I’m willing to put myself forward for this experiment. For the good of science, of course.

If your boobs are a little bit on the small or saggy side, some of you ladies might be tempted to have some plastic surgery done to rectify the problem. If you do, you probably won’t be operated on by this surgeon, who was caught taking selfies with his patients. Of course, this didn’t end well.