London - Men with deep voices have lower sperm counts than their counterparts, researchers have discovered.
With studies finding that women rate men with deep voices as being more dominant, older, healthier and more masculine, scientists from the University of Western Australia tried to discover if they are also more fertile.
They recorded men saying the five vowels and calculated the pitch of their speech. The tapes were played back to women, who rated them for attractiveness. Finally, sperm samples were analysed.
The women judged the lower-pitched voices as more attractive, but those men had lower sperm counts, the journal PLoS ONE reports.
The biology behind the phenomenon may be quite simple, with high levels of the male sex hormone testosterone impeding sperm production. - Daily Mail