Definitive scientific study finally answers question: Is gaydar real?

It's a question that has caused endless speculation for philosophers and scientists for eons. Now, a new study from Tufts University claims that Gaydar is real, and they have the, um ... evidence ... to back up that claim.

"For the study, 15 undergraduate students, both male and female, were shown photos of faces of 90 men, evenly divided between gay and straight. The photos were taken from Internet personal ads and from Facebook. The study's lead author, graduate student Nicholas Rule, says men were used in this study for convenience, because they have a greater presence on the Internet than women.

The researchers found that subjects could accurately determine in 50 milliseconds — one-twentieth of a second — whether the men were gay or straight about 60 percent of the time. Rule says all the subjects were accurate 55 percent to 70 percent of the time.

When subjects were allowed to look at the photos for up to 10 seconds, they weren't much better at judging sexual orientation than in 50 milliseconds. But when subjects had only 33 milliseconds to consider each photo, their judgments were significantly less accurate."

Okay, where to begin? First, I had to check the date to make sure I hadn't entered a time warp and ended up back on April 1st. Then, I was convinced this came from The Onion or another satirical website ... but it's not.

Facebook? Internet personal ads? Fifteen undergraduate students (who were probably hungover from Beer Pong the night before)?

"Their judgments were significantly less accurate at thirty three milliseconds?" Really, Professor Obvious? You mean they couldn't tell whether a flash of a blob in a picture was gay? Well, that's ... significant, isn't it?

This bogus (but hilarious) research aside, someone actually has invented a real gaydar device, as this classic clip from The Daily Show proves. You can see it after the break, and I think I'm going to go scope out that cute cashier at Subway, and hopefully I'll have my answer in fifty milliseconds.