Q: Why Do I Have Body Hair?

Making an appointment now for a full body waxing to get you ready for your annual winter vacay in St. Barths? You might want to rethink that plan.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have shown that our fine human fuzz has a highly practical purpose. Through a truly chilling series of experiments involving bed bugs, Vaseline and tally-counters, Isabelle Dean and Michael T. Siva-Jothy proved that body hair serves as a distant-early-warning system against parasites (you feel ’em faster as they move through the jungle) and also made the human body less hospitable (i.e., it took the critters longer to latch on and blood-suck when they had to circumnavigate the tangles).

So go ahead and wax away—but you better have faith in the hygiene at your resort hotel.