ADAM IS BACK, BUT THIS TIME JULIE ROBERTS AIN'T TAKING THE RAP

A warning to today's woman -- there's another Adam out there sorta putting you down!

Here's the deal. Psychologist Adam Pazda of the University of Rochester has been researching the effects of the color scarlet worn by women. He reports in ScienceNow.org that when a woman wears reds and especially scarlets, men assume she is communicating an interest in intercourse. Why? "When female chimps achieve peak fertility, a rush of estrogen opens up their blood vessels, flushing their faces and giving males the signal that it's time to mate...."

I don't know a lot about our primate origins, but this Adam seems to suggest they are still pretty active here in the 21st C. He may be right. Darn if a great many of his fellow researchers don't also suggest we're only a short evolutionary step away from said origins. Making you wonder if thousands of years of great architecture, music, literature, art and honorable pursuits by our species pretty much all comes down to merely working out our evolutionary destiny.

If that's what we're discovering, perhaps our species had best get used to it. Being just another species on this just another of a billion planets. And while I suppose I can learn to adjust, I'm having real trouble adjusting to Disney's newest hit "Mirror Mirror." In this re-make of the Grimm fairy tale of Snow White, Disney has not only portrayed the cute seven dwarfs in the more primitive nature of the original, he's struck a cruel evolutionary blow to my gender.

Mind you, I haven't seen the film yet, but alas the reviews report Disney knocks Prince Charming off his great white charger. In other words, sassy Snow White doesn't really need him -- or any other Adam -- to save her. She pretty much does it herself!

Great theme for today's independent women. But what about Adams like me? Who've always thought, yes, we could be some fair damsel's Prince Charming? Now, however, we're being told: Forget it, zippy, the gals in scarlet probably aren't wooing you; probably they're laughing at you!