High Wired update: Fun and games with league tables IS 33 out of 40 in a world league table a good thing or just a load of codswallop? We love 'em anyway: Rankings season is upon us. The QS ranking of world unis was released first thing this morning (7am AEST). HW hasn't had a chance to look at the performance of other countries yet, but Australia experienced an overall downward trend. Of the 20 universities in the top 400, eight moved up, 11 moved down and one (UNSW) stayed put. HW isn't sure how to interpret this. Whether it's the federal government's fault for not stumping up on base funding, whether other world unis are getting more competitive, or whether QS keeps twiddling the dials on its methodology (she couldn't find anyone to speak to at QS last night to explain but will try again today). Reality check: With an estimated 7800 universities worldwide, having 33 in the QS list is pretty good. But it also leaves HW scratching her head. The list this year goes to 701+ (locally represented by UNE, the University of Southern Queensland and Victoria University). But why those universities and not Charles Sturt or Edith Cowan or any one of the other five universities not to be included on the list (OK, for the record, they are Southern Cross, Ballarat, CQU, Sunshine Coast and Notre Dame). As the experts will tell you, if you are in the top 100 you probably deserve to be there. After 200, the differences between institutions are negligible and after 400 it must be a goddamned lottery. Still ranting: A closer look at some of the different rankings shows how Melbourne is seriously let down by its staff to student ratio. Melbourne scores a perfect 100 for the employer reputation ranking, but a mere 50.1 staff to student ratio, while ANU scored an admirable 83.4 - which is basically why ANU tops the list and Melbourne doesn't. Moving on: HW could go on and on about rankings, but time to move on. She noted a story in the Huffington Post that the University of Illinois has got a new beer research lab. Now HW loves this story for two reasons. One, because it's on the university's Champaign campus (I kid you not). And two, that campus was named in the top three party schools in the recent Princeton Review's annual poll. Sadly the research centre is not for taste testing but data analytics with students examining "how social media, promotions and market trends impact sales." Delicacy required: A few former cheerleaders probably know this from bitter experience. Now US researchers have found a neurological explanation why blokes with big testicles make dodgy dads. It all fits in with "life history theory," which essentially says that males of all species have only so much energy and they'll put it into siring kids or rearing them, but not both. That's all very well, but how is a thirty-something woman with the biological clock ticking supposed to apply this insight? Take her slide rule with her next time she goes clubbing? Quiz e-daters on "relative volume of cojones," along with income, sense of humour and star sign? "I doubt that men are aware of their relative testes size," co-author Jim Rillings admits, so what hope for women?