The Greatest Thing Since the Revival of Grove Cults

It has come to my attention this weekend that scientists have formulated a new way of judging beauty based upon a very ancient system.

In Homer's Iliad, the great temptress Helen was reputed to have possessed such beauty that she had "a face that launched a thousand ships." Each of these ships reportedly had 50 men. Thus, Helen had the power to control the lives of 50,000 men while only promising to sleep with one of them.

Dividing that into equal parts, scientists now have "milihelens." Each milihelen is an increment of beauty capable of launching a single ship of men to sail across the sea and die for her, despite a complete lack of promised sexual reciprocation.

After extensive research, the following stars have thus been rated:

Nicole Kidman: 30 milihelens
Catherine Zeta-Jones: 180 milihelens (or 1.8 centihelens)
Keira Knightly: 147 milihelens (risen from 116mh when she turned 18 last year)
Britney Spears: 6 milihelens
Diane Kruger: 142 milihelens (who played Helen in the most recent Troy)
Salma Hayek: 740 milihelens (highest recorded to date)

Researchers also found that Glen Close and Ellen Degeneres apparently had a negative milihelen score causing men to board ships and flee their presence. Research continues.