The secrets of sexual attractiveness are to be explored by North-East researchers at a major scientific event next month.

A team of scientists from Newcastle University, who are studying the underlying genetic mechanisms which determine who we 'fancy', have been invited to take part in the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.

The Newcastle researchers suspect that we instinctively scan a potential mate's face for signs of "good" genes.

To test this hypothesis the Newcastle team will invite some of the 3,000 expected visitors to the show to take part in a "Mate Choice" experiment.

Dr Marion Petrie, a member of the biology department at Newcastle University, explained that visitors will be asked to look at photographs of different human faces, in black-and-white and then in colour, and grade them in order of attractiveness.

In this experiment the researchers are particularly interested in the relative appeal of different skin textures and colours. "One of our more recent findings is that you can tell something about someone's underlying genetic quality from the face alone. We all know faces are attractive but we don't really know why," said Dr Petrie, who is part of a specialist group of researchers looking at a new and exotic area of science called neuro ecology or neuroinformatics.

"We have discovered that either skin colour or texture is important in determining attractiveness, with a big sample of people we will try to do a couple of experiments to pin that down," she added.

"As part of our research we have genotyped people so we are linking all sorts of things that people find attractive to specific, identifiable genes. Eventually we hope to understand the underlying mechanisms of human mating," said Dr Petrie.

The exhibition takes place at the Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace, London from July 1-3. For more information visit www.royalsoc.ac.uk