Scientists at Cambridge University have today announced that they have found hard evidence explaining why it is women the world over live longer than men. It's simply down to them not working as hard as menfolk.

The answer to this question had alluded scientists across the globe for decades, with many theories previously being proposed, but all previously discounted.

In 1963 the German scientist and philosopher Hans Krammer suggested that women lived longer because men did not have breasts. His controversial theory suggested that men spent so long trying to play with, and get their hands on, women's cleavage that they burnt their hearts out quicker. Krammer died in 1970 at his Cologne apartment after suffocating on a large pair of inflatable breasts. Foul play was suspected, but never proven.

Krammer's theory was disproved in 1968 by Lars Unicycle a Danish scientist who instead postulated that women lived longer because they drank more tea than men.

Brainy and with whites which are whiter than white

"Coffee kills" Unicycle said, making an enemy of the burgeoning coffee industry in the process. Suffering from a life long allergy to coffee Unicycle died aged ninety five after accidentally ordering a Mocha in a new coffee shop known as Starbucks. "He simply didn't realise what he was drinking," his distraught daughter, Olga said at the time, "what's with all this fancy new tea and coffee anyway?" Unicycle's legacy is such that it is only now that his theory has been disproved using scientific data collected over the last twenty years by a team based at England's Cambridge University.

Speaking to Mr Damian, team leader Hector Windpipe told us "all the previous theories were simply barking up the wrong tree looking for physiological or psychological reasons for women's longevity, but the reason that they live longer is simply because they just don't work as hard."

Warming to his theme Windpipe said "cooking, cleaning and having babies really isn't as tiring as commuting and working in a modern office day environment, or indeed hunting for food like they do in third world countries. Women are simply less tired, because they don't work as hard. And QED that is why they have a longer innings. Men are simply playing on a sticky wicket and that's why they're often back in the pavilion perhaps quicker than they ought."

Unsurprisingly feminists around the world objected to these accusations, "women live longer simply because they are superior" Germaine Greer told us, "and I challenge any man to a cake making contest who disagrees." Men, mixing bowls and Mrs Beaton cook books to the ready.

Big brain, even bigger cakes

Posted by damian at December 12, 2004 10:23 AM | TrackBack