I'm an evolutionary expert - these are the fascinating ways humans are STILL evolving - and how it could lead to generation of attractive people (or psychos!)

People may assume the human race stopped evolving thousands of years ago, but the process is still very much happening.

Evolutionary biologist Nicholas Longrich said that disease, predators and person-on-person violence had been largely eliminated as selective factors. 

And, in a world where survival doesn’t dictate which genes dominate, the ability to reproduce is all-important.

For this reason, he believes that attractive traits - being tall and toned, for example - could become the new characteristics that are naturally selected. 

But he has revealed several other fascinating ways humans will evolve in the coming centuries - including women becoming pregnant well into their 60s to counter the fertility crisis plaguing the world.

Our brains have changed size and shape in recent decades (stock)

Professor Longrich, an Alaskan-born academic at the University of Bath in England, said: 'We've largely eliminated predators as a selective factor. 

'Violence is dramatically reduced as a selective factor. It still happens, but fewer people die of warfare or murder than at any point in human history.’

‘Disease is eliminated for the most part, but not entirely: coronavirus is not the flu, but it’s not the Black Death either. Every once in a while someone gets eaten by a shark, but most of the natural causes of death have been eliminated.’

Get ready for the 'hot generation;

Longrich said: ‘In hunter gatherer times you got two men, and one's pretty handsome but he's an idiot and he gets himself killed - he takes a spear to the chest or a lion eats him.

‘Now the woman goes to the remaining guy because he's alive, he might be a bit ugly, but ugly beats dead.’

But in a future where less people die, attractiveness will grow more and more important - particularly when people meet their partners digitally.

Will baldness go extinct? 

With women increasingly choosing partners for their height - and both sexes choosing for facial symmetry, humans will become taller and more beautiful, Longrich suggested.

‘Women often select for height, and I would think we will have reduced levels of baldness - your bald readers may not appreciate this, but baldness may go extinct.’

Fertile seniors 

With countries including Japan, the U.S. the UK and South Korea all already below ‘replacement level’, people who have lots of kids will drive human evolution.

That could lead to both evolution favoring strong relationships, and people evolving to be able to reproduce longer - as the genes of people who can reproduce longer will be favored, Longrich explained.

Women will live longer and reproduce later

Longrich said: ‘Some people would probably have more kids if they can keep having them longer.

‘Women who go into menopause five years later will dramatically outperform reproductively women who go into menopause five years earlier. So I think humans could evolve towards delayed menopause, delayed ageing and longer life.’

A world of plotters and passive aggressive men?

Physical aggressiveness is being selected against - because people who assault others are locked up and unable to have babies.

What this may mean, however, is that people becoming increasingly passive aggressive and conniving. 

Longrich said: ‘It's already very rare to have, one man getting another guy's face, let alone to kill him or hit him or anything like that. If you get mad at your colleague, if you punch them, they'll fire you.

Physical violence might be rare, but still psychopaths and narcissists could thrive

‘What that means is that, you know, the attacks are all through social networks, reputation, destruction, political maneuvering, it's all this stuff.

‘The dark thing is that we might evolve towards a world that’s more like Mean Girls.’

Today’s mental health crisis is driven by people who might have been well-adjusted in a hunter-gatherer society but are struggling to cope with rapid changes.

But as people evolve to ‘cope, it could favor people with low empathy.

Longrich said, ‘The characteristics that correlate very strongly with anxiety and depression are often high levels of empathy and sensitivity and intelligence.’

‘Modern societies are in so many ways broken that for a creature to become highly adapted to that, it would be a very dysfunctional creature.’

... or the rise of the ‘Homer Simpson bod’

With longer lives, women may select men not on their ultra-ripped physique but on their likelihood of being a ‘good Dad’.

Women tend to favor men with lean, hunter-gatherer physiques similar to Jackie Chan rather than ultra-built Arnold Schwarzenegger types.

Will women crave the 'Homer Simpson bod'?

But in the future, females might favor ‘dad bods’ like Homer Simpson

‘Maybe women who prefer a dad bod would leave behind more kids and therefore the dad bod genes would spread - I can see it going that way.

‘Basically if there is some physical type that correlates with being a good father and maybe it's having a bit of paunch - the Homer Simpson bod.

'Homer is a great dad. He's an idiot but he loves his kids he's super patient. Homer is the ultimate dad.

‘Women who prefer Homer Simpson would leave behind tonnes of kids that in a generation or two that come to dominate, and women who prefer, you know, the guy who looks like an action movie star with the other kids wouldn't do as well.’