Oxytocin is the brain’s love hormone—without it, we might not ever fall in love or attempt monogamy. We know that the hormone releases “happy” feelings during events from nursing to orgasm, and is the reason why people feel a chemical “bond” with a partner. And now, scientists have found that the hormone can also boost the sex appeal of complete strangers.
A University of Bristol study tested 96 men and women in a double-blind test by spraying them with either oxytocin or a plecebo. The subjects were then asked to rate pictures of 48 men and women for attractiveness, and 30 for trustworthiness. Sure enough, the participants that had sniffed the love hormone tended to rate the random people in the pictures as better looking or more trustworthy.
Psychologist Angeliki Theodoriduou, who led the study, found that regardless of their gender or mood, the people under the influence of oxytocin were more likely to like the strangers in the pictures.
Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer is married to the Berlin Wall. Like any couple, they’ve had their ups and downs, but over the years, they’ve been able to meet each other’s spiritual and emotional needs. “We even made it through the terrible disaster of 9 November 1989, when my husband was subjected to frenzied attacks by a mob. But we are still as much in love as the day we met,” Berliner-Mauer said last year.
Berliner-Mauer (the German name for the Berlin Wall, which she has taken as her last name) has since defined her love under the term “objectum sexual,” or OS—in other words, a person who falls in love with inanimate objects. As an animist, she, along with a growing group of others, believe that inanimate objects are sentient, intelligent beings.
Take Erika Eiffel, who is married to the Eiffel Tower. Eiffel says she recalls being attracted to objects even as a child, and realized she was different only when she saw other people at school dating each other, while she was dating a bridge.
We know that sex typically lasts anywhere from 3 to 13 minutes—though it can be as short as a few seconds. About 40 percent of men suffer from premature ejaculation at some point in their lives—and the usual treatment for it involves counseling and anti-depressants. European researchers at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast developed a spray to treat the problem directly—and they’ve achieved stunning results. Men who used the spray could perform six times longer, upping their time in bed from mere seconds to as long as four minutes.
The love potion is a topical anesthetic called PSD502, made of 7.5 milligrams of lidocaine and 2.5 mg of prilocaine. By “reducing the heightened sensitivity of the glands penis with topical anesthetics,” the drug improves performance time without affecting the “sensation of ejaculation.”
To test it, the researchers recruited 300 men who had a history of lasting only a minute (or less) in bed.
We blame genes for obesity, mental illness, and a host of other issues. But can they determine when we lose our virginity? Researchers are now saying yes, they can—or, at least, that’s what media reports are saying researchers are saying.
CSU psychologist Nancy Segal looked at 48 pairs of twins who were separated at birth to see how genes influenced their sexual maturity. To compare the twins’ sexual histories, Segal had each of them take a “sexual life history interview” composed of a “sexual meaning survey, a sexual life history timeline, and a sexual behavior questionnaire.” The researchers found that most twins lost their virginity at around 19 years of age. New Scientist calls the findings “modest” at best—the genes “explain a third of the differences in the participant’s age of first intercourse.”
Of course, despite screaming headlines to the contrary, exactly how genes are linked to the loss of virginity is still thoroughly “speculative,” as Segal told DISCOVER. Other groups have pinpointed a gene—DRD4— that has been linked to age of loss of virginity.
Given all the hoopla, it’s worth asking, are these studies really linking genes and virginity at all? DRD4 is known as the “risk taking” gene? People who are risk takers also abuse alcohol and drugs or engage in delinquent behavior—virginity is only one risk-taking measure, and an arguable one at that.
• Toxic sofas, after being shipped from China with packets of a harmful mold-inhibitor, caused extreme skin rashes and burns on at least 1,600—and possibly tens of thousands not yet identified—people in England.
After almost hunting them to extinction back in the 1970s, not to mention the effects wrought by DDT, now we humans are putting geese on birth control. And pigeons. And white-tailed deer, if the EPA approves the application currently in its hands.
OvoControl is an oral contraceptive now available for geese and pigeons that was developed by a former pharmaceutical employee and the National Wildlife Research Center in Colorado. The formula for the pill sprouted from a drug that was developed years ago to prevent a fatal illness in chickens, but had the unintended side effect of preventing eggs from hatching. It has now been developed by Innolytics, a California-based company, into a chewy, wheat-based pill for Canadian geese and pigeons. It is currently available for purchase by licensed pest control operators and government agencies.
• German twenty-somethings would rather give up sex than the Internet: In an industry survey, 84 percent of 19- to 29-year-olds said they would rather live without their current partner or an automobile than their Internet connection, and 97 percent found it “unthinkable” to live without a cell phone.
• Meanwhile, Mother Russia “disproves” [sic] of the “monopolizing” American control over the Internet. A government official has spoken out against the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which creates top-level domain names (like .com) and manages IP addresses. The goverment reportedly plans to release suggestions for how to “demonopolize” the Internet—like oh, say, put a few crooked billionaires in charge.
Not all animals have fun during the mating process. Seed beetles can get pretty beaten up, and fruit flies can even get sick from it.
When female fruit flies mate, their immune system responds to the sperm the same way it does to germs. University of California, Santa Barbara evolutionary biologist Andrew Stewart sees the immune system as a battleground, a place where the sexes can compete—a female’s immune system will rev up so it can fight off the proteins in the ejaculate, so she can live longer and have more babies.
But the exact reason for this immune response is still up in the air. It’s possible the male knows that the female has mated with other male flies, and uses the pathogens in his sperm to beat the other males in fertilizing eggs. Regardless, females still pay a heavy price: Most females mate with several partners, even though if they mate just once, their life span is shortened significantly.
But the beetles have it worse, because their mating is so brutal: When a female decides to mate, she repeatedly gets jabbed by the male’s sexual organ, which looks more like a medieval weapon than pleasure tool. But the females put up with the roughness, apparently because they are so thirsty.
We know that a woman can tell whether a man is attracted to her from the scent of his sweat. But the finer details of sexual odor have escaped us, until now: Swiss scientists say they’ve discovered that men’s sweat smells like cheese, while women smell like onions when they perspire.
Researchers from a Swiss company called Firmenich asked 24 men and 25 women to go in a sauna or pedal on an exercise bike for 15 minutes, to collect armpit sweat. The smells were then rated by “independent smell assessors.” (Wow, that must have been a fun job!) Of the two groups, the scientists agreed: Women had the more “unpleasant” smell.
The researchers also discovered why women’s sweat smelled like onions: The female sweat had ten times the level of an odorless sulfur-containing compound than men. It turns out that when this sulfur compound is mixed with bacteria under the arm, it creates a chemical called thiol—and this chemical is known for smelling like onions.
There’s plenty of real-life drama to go around in the land of virtual worlds. And given what a major part sex plays in Second Life, it’s not altogether shocking that one activity gaining traction is the chance to give virtual birth [link not in any way safe for work].
Avatars are able to get pregnant the (virtual) old-fashioned way, and can choose the location in which they deliver. The whole process is mighty up close and personal, and results in a somewhat surreal-looking newborn avatar. The details often depart substantially from reality—babies are typically born in a matter of minutes, and sometimes emerge from the womb wearing cute onesies or resembling teddy bears—but the general experience is nonetheless captured. The births have even made waves in the (real) midwife community, with a midwives’ group setting up meetings and performing deliveries within the virtual world as an opportunity for professional education.
Here’s a pretty typical example [Warning: Not really suitable for children, or most adults, for that matter]:
DiscoBlog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's edited by Eliza Strickland, and written by Brett Israel and Andrew Moseman.
Oxytocin is the brain’s love hormone—without it, we might not ever fall in love or attempt monogamy. We know that the hormone releases “happy” feelings during events from nursing to orgasm, and is the reason why people feel a chemical “bond” with a partner. And now, scientists have found that the hormone can also boost the sex appeal of complete strangers.
Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer is 
We know that sex typically lasts anywhere from 
We blame genes for 
•
After almost hunting them to extinction back in the 1970s, not to mention the effects 
Not all animals have fun during the mating process. Seed beetles can get 
We know that a woman can tell whether a man is 
