Anyone who ever wondered why a dying plant, say, a freshly-cut red rose may appeal to a lady friend, might take some comfort in science, which once again offers us a reasonable answer to one of the world' s great mysteries. Beyond a common preference in people for blue, "the long history of color preference studies has been described as 'confusing and contradictory '," write scientists Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of England' s Newcastle University, authors of a new study in the journal Current Biology. "This fact is perhaps surprising," they said, "though the popularity of the concept that little girls differ from boys in preferring pink." But the scientists believe they have an answer to this scientific mystery, discovering women's preference for red, hidden above the average liking for blue. In their study, the pair quickly flashed color cards, displaying many different aspects, at 208 volunteers, mostly Britishers but with a number of Han Chinese, who moved to the United Kingdom recently. Tested in three different experiments, the researchers found out a small but significant preference for reddish colors in the female volunteers. Puzzled, the authors realized that most of the difference between men and women came in the form of a preference for green VS red in the color cards, regardless of the other slight differences such as the slightly blue ones that everyone liked. Why might this be? Evolution might offer an answer, they reason. Human color perception , the assessment of three separate color types -- red -- green -- blue-- in our vision   is a relatively recent addition to our line of mammals  Adding weight to their argument, they found the women who are most typically feminine  on a psychological survey also had the biggest preference for reddish colors. "My love is like a red, red rose," wrote the Scottish poet Rober Burns in 1794. How did the scientist do the research?
By asking questions By telephoning the interviewees By adding numbers By doing experiments