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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"39518","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","alt":"Why do we have eyebrows?"}}]]Some are dark, some are light. Some are bushy, some are pencil thin. Some people even try to shave them, but there’s no denying, we all have them. We’re talking about those two bands of hair sitting just above our eyes–eyebrows! But what purpose do they serve? Why do we even have eyebrows? We answer this question with help from Mental Floss.
You may be surprised to know that eyebrows actually serve two very important purposes.
The first being that they help divert sweat and rain away from our eyes. Without them, our vision could be easily compromised anytime we’re in the middle of an intense workout or get stuck in the rain.
Besides protecting our eyes from moisture, eyebrows also act as our most expressive facial feature. Try flexing your eyebrows up and then scrunching them down towards your nose. Can you lift one eyebrow up while holding the other in place? Without moving your mouth or eyes, these movements caused your facial expressions to drastically change. With just a lift or scrunch of an eyebrow, we can tell people whether we are surprised, worried, mad or confused. Huh?
“Scientists who study facial expressions say eyebrows are key to expressing happiness, surprise, and anger,” Mental Floss reports. “They’re especially useful to speakers of sign language, who contort their eyebrows to complement hand signs.”
In fact, they may be even more identifiable than our eyes. According to Mental Floss, in 2003, researchers at MIT, photoshopped two copies of the same Richard Nixon photo. One erased his eyes, and the other erased his eyebrows. The results? The study’s participants were more likely to identify the former president with missing eyes than missing eyebrows.
Looking for more Never Stop Asking "Why?" questions? Catch up on all of the past "Whys" on the blog!
