Watching the news on TV or reading it from the papers in any given day, you would inevitably find a story about the extramarital affairs of this and that politician or celebrity.

Extramarital affairs are like traffic on rush hours – you can’t escape not seeing or not being with people who are doing it.

Indeed, faithful husbands and wives have become rarities. Their pictures and other mementoes could be displayed in a museum someday, with a caption that reads: “This is how mankind used to be.”

The scientists say this is not really something outa-this-world. They say only 3 percent to 5 percent of the roughly 5,000 species of mammals (including humans) are known to form lifelong, monogamous bonds.

Social monogamy is a term referring to creatures that pair up to mate and raise offspring but still have flings. Sexually monogamous pairs mate with only with one partner. So a cheating husband who detours for a romantic romp yet returns home in time to tuck in the kids at night is still considered socially monogamous.

Psychologists suggest that men are more likely to have extramarital sex, partially due to the male urge to “spread their genes.” Both males and females, these scientists say, try to up their evolutionary progress by seeking out high-quality mates, albeit in different ways.

The committed partnership between a man and a woman evolved, some say, for the well-being of children. This is what makes the human species unique since the fathers of other animals don’t really invest much for their offsprings or take care of them like human fathers do.

“The human species has evolved to make commitments between males and females in regards to raising their offspring, so this is a bond,” said Jane Lancaster, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of New Mexico.

Whether or not the married or otherwise committed individuals stray for sex depends on the costs and benefits.

“There is plenty of evidence that males have less to lose than females by having extramarital sex,” Lancaster said. “Having less to lose, it’s easier for them to do it.”

Women, however, could lose “dad’s” resources when it comes to raising their kids. “For women, the well-being of their children is not improved by promiscuity,” Lancaster said.

Some scientists say humans are by nature polygamous. “I don’t think we are a monogamous animal,” said Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“A really monogamous animal is a goose – which never mates again even if its mate is killed,” he added.

She added, “Monogamy is invented for order and investment – but not necessarily because it’s ‘natural.'”

I don’t see much of people quack-quacking like geese around. For this reason, geese definitely deserve more respect than the vultures around us.

Still on the subject of size, I read a recent article saying that short people, particularly men, are more prone to jealousy. And jealousy leads to all sorts of problems. Crimes of passion have mostly been committed due to jealousy.

So this “shortness” issue deserves to be in the short list of problems that authorities should tackle since the list of its negative implications to society is not really short.

According to the British weekly New Scientist, a study showed that “the more vertically challenged the man, the greater his feelings of jealousy.”

But the study did not mention horizontally over-endowed people and if they, too, have a tendency to be jealous. Come to think of it, this could also apply to fatsos: The wider the girth, the greater the feelings of jealousy, since if you’re horizontally challenged you’ll naturally be envious of curvaceous babes, perhaps even if the curves are implanted.

The study on vertically challenged people was conducted in the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and University of Valencia in Spain. It asked 549 Dutch and Spanish men and women to rate how jealous they felt, and to list the qualities in a romantic competitor that were most likely to make them ill at ease.

Men generally felt most nervous about attractive, rich, strong and taller rivals. Taller men are most successful with women, the study said.

I don’t know why some women prefer taller men. Don’t they risk suffering from stiff neck just from looking up at their mate’s face? Maybe they could afford to risk neck injury for some other considerations. I wonder what could that be.

For women, what counted most in jealousy was the rival’s looks and charm, but these feelings were less intense if the woman herself was of average height, the study said. Women of medium height enjoy the best health, fertility and popularity with men, it added.

Medium height for women could be 5’2” for Asians and 5’6” for Caucasians, perhaps? I’m just guessing.

“Taller women are more dominant and have greater fighting abilities than shorter women,” says the study, which appeared in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

That’s quite understandable, since taller women would have a tendency to look down upon people, both literally and figuratively. Since they consider themselves physically superior to shorter people, they would tend to be domineering.

But take heart all you shorties (including myself I guess). We should not let the giants of this world rule our lives. We should assert that even if we’re vertically challenged, our mind, our abilities, our powers are the same as those of the walking skyscrapers among us.

People are people regardless of their size – my own variation of the theme in “Horton.”

If you want to live a happy, productive life, get all those pieces of rubbish out of your office or house!

You don’t need a Feng Shui expert to tell you that keeping all sorts of trash in your house or office – like old clothes, magazines, toys, newspapers and other bric-a-brac – will do you no good, and in fact will drain you of your energy and health.

And besides, wouldn’t your home look nicer without all those mess and clutter?

With the Chinese New Year just a few days away, you better hurry up and get all those mess out of your house and your life as well. Start the year with a clean, uncluttered and spacious house or office space, and you will draw all the positive energies into your own life.

If you’re harboring 30-year-old clothes from your closet — yuck! — get them out! Their smell alone could probably knock out even a rat, even if it their year this year.

Here’s what Feng Shui experts say about dirty, cluttered homes versus clean and organized homes.

What does a dirty, cluttered home do to you?

• It makes you feel tired. A cluttered home is a visual and psychic drain. All that stuff makes you fatigued. Feng Shui expert Gi Santos says one of the most fatigued people he knows simply would not throw anything away. Antiques were her specialty. Everything was a “collectible.” Gi says after he told her about the ill effects of keeping such antiques, she finally let go of her addiction. Now she’s regaining her energy, he says.

• It makes you feel hopeless. Simply put, too much stuff is overwhelming and we can’t handle it all, so we throw our psychological hands in the air in frustration. We keep putting off cleaning up, hoping someone will fix it up for us or by some
miracle, it will clear by itself…of course, that’s wishful thinking.

• It makes you poor. Ever notice those homes of the super-rich? They’re a study in restraint. You notice their homes because stuff isn’t everywhere. In contrast, look at the homes of people who are struggling to make ends meet. You will most likely find all sorts of clutter and trash inside their homes.

• It makes you feel out of control in your life. That’s because the stuff is in control and you’re not. Put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life and take control of all that unwanted stuff by donating it, throwing it away, or organizing it.

What does a clean, organized home do for you?

• It gives you a sense of calm. Imagine walking into a room where the tops are cleared off and there are no papers and mess scattered about. How does it make you feel? That’s the feeling you get when you walk into a hotel room. It’s neat and you can see the room and not all the stuff.

• It gives you back your health. Dirty, cluttered houses can make you fatigued, constipated, have back pain, and congested. Not just because there’s stuff everywhere, but because there is dust on all that stuff — and dust is nothing but negative energy. Unclog your home and your health will definitely improve!

• It gives you wealth. Think about the times when you were doing well financially. As money worries piled up, did you ever make the correlation that so has all the stuff around you? Get rid of it and you will see financial flow again! There was this guy who built a house some years back, and it had that model home look for about two years. Slowly but surely the knickknacks began taking over every surface and stuff began to pile up in corners. As this has happened, this guy’s financial situation began to deteriorate as well.

• It puts you in control of your life. Suddenly, order appears in the Universe, you can find things. The feeling of being overwhelmed will pass away. Again, take a look at the homes of super wealthy people – they are a picture of prudence and restraint.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get those garbage bags and start putting all those oldie stuffs into them. Then wait for the garbage truck to arrive and dispose of them!

A clean, healthy Chinese New Year to all!