Why do men grow beards? Charles Darwin suggested facial hair evolved as an ornament favored by women. A team of University of Utah biologists tested a more combative idea: that a thick beard might work like built-in padding, softening blows to the jaw during fights.
To find out, they did not punch anyone. They dropped a weight onto bone-like plates covered in sheepskin, some with a full coat of wool and some bare. The woolly samples broke far less often, a result that later earned the team the 2021 Ig Nobel Peace Prize and still fuels debate about what beards are for.
