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Can't Get No Satisfaction? Try Oxytocin

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:25:00 GMT

A new study indicates that the hormone oxytocin, normally used to facilliate birth and breastfeeding, can help you get over the fact that you're not attracted to damn near everyone around you.

An ABC News report says that oxytocin, which is available for purchase in the form of a nasal spray or injection, helps people develop bonds with strangers and to become more attracted to people they might not otherwise have been attracted to. Are we sure this is a good thing? Won't every guy in the world spray his bottle into a club full of women and then start prowling around? Can relationships survive this medical miracle?

A new study shows that men and women who inhale a whiff of the hormone oxytocin rate strangers as more attractive.
This effect adds to the hormone's known role in human relationships. One study found that oxytocin levels spike after new mothers look at or touch their newborns and may help bonding.
No matter their sex or mood, volunteers who received oxytocin rated male and female strangers as both more attractive and trusting.
Theodoridou's study did not examine how oxytocin could affect social judgements, but she speculates that the hormone dampens brain activity in a region involved in processing fearful emotions, called the amygdala.

Emphasis added. Before you all call up your uncle the shady doctor for a prescription (if you even need one), consider this partial list of side effects:

Impaired uterine blood flow, pelvic hematoma, tetanic uterine contractions, uterine rupture, postpartum hemorrhage.

In other words, completely harmless. Via ABC News.

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Sloppy Seconds: Gwyneth Paltrow Has a Cure for Joaquin Phoenix

Emily Farris — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:01:00 GMT

A round-up of those who are about to die. On TV, of course. [EW]

Is South by Southwest is a pointlless party? [Gawker]

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson apparently came this close to joining the mile high club on a recent Virgin Atlantic flight. [Mile High Club Book]

Researchers say a compound often found in cosmetics and foods like ice cream could help prevent the spread of HIV when used in lube. [CollegeNews]

When we find out a guy we think is cute can't spell, we get really disappointed. Same goes for Joanna Angel. But hey, she Twitters some pretty great stuff. [Twitter]

Gwyneth Paltrow thinks her buddy Joaquin Phoenix needs some street cred if he's doing to keep rapping. She thinks he should take a trip to the projects. [People]

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Sloppy Seconds: Nicky Hilton Takes the Law Into Her Own Hands

Emily Farris — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:26:00 GMT

What would Mickey Rourke have said had he won the Oscar? Probably that Marisa Tomei is awesome because "not that many girls can climb the pole, y'know?" [Vulture]

A 30-year-old aspiring male model committed suicide in Brooklyn's Prospect Park last week, after stating his intentions to do so on his Facebook page. [DailyIntel]

Ever wonder why boys (in general) don't like pink and girls (in general) do? If the results of a recent study are to be believed, it's because mens' and womens' brains respond differently to "beautiful" objects. Of course, the study was done with paintings and we're just guessing on the pink thing; we don't think pink is that beautiful, really. [Reuters]

What's in the water in this Brazilian town where 38 pairs of twins were born among about 80 families living in a one-and-a-half-square-mile area? [NYT]

We've always thought of citizen's arrest as this weird thing that people don't actually do. To the best of our knowledge, generally they don't. Unless, of course, they're Nicky Hilton. Surprisingly, we're left with only one question: what the hell was she doing at IHOP at 5 a.m.? [Us]

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Are Too Few Baby Boys Being Circumcised?

Emily Farris — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:29:00 GMT

According to new research, the number of baby boys being circumcised in the U.S. is dropping. While critics of circumcision may think this is a good thing, the reason behind the drop may not be.

Circumcision rates have decreased significantly since the 1980s, partially due to the fact that many people find the procedure cruel and unnecessary, but in part the drop can be attributed to the fact that 16 states do not currently cover the cost of a circumcision in their Medicad programs. According to some, this is taking the choice away from the poor.

Robert C. Bailey, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, thinks that "It's another way in which our health system is increasing inequality across the population. People who can't afford good health care are essentially being discriminated against by this policy."

The states that don't cover circumcision are: Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Washington and circumcision rates are "significantly lower" in those states, according to the research.

[US News & World Report: Circumcision Rates Too Low]

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Scotsman Can Tell What Your Orgasms Are Like Just By Staring At You

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:46:00 GMT

In what history will probably reveal is the most perverted study ever conducted by a major European university, researchers from the University of the West of Scotland (eh, probably not that major) went to Belgium to see if they could tell what a woman's orgasms were like just by looking at them...

And by "looking at them," we mean "a lot more than just sat around and used their eyes..."

1) The women they used were all Belgian university students. Pervs.

2) The women were asked about their sex lives and then videotaped (from the bushes, perhaps?) walking down the street. Pervs.

3) They had female sexologists (presumably hot professors with glasses and lab coats) watch the tapes and take a guess whether the women could have vaginal orgasms. Pervs. (You know, girls talking about other girls getting off...)

Seriously, though, it turns out women can have orgasms. Wait, sorry, we meant: it turns out that the sexologists guessed correctly guessed 80% of the time as to whether the woman could have orgasms vaginally. Um, no offense guys, but we're pretty sure if we said yes a bunch of times and no a bunch of times, we'd be correct about that much of the time. Or maybe not... after all, not as many women can have vaginal orgasms as you may think...

The study, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, found that trained sexologists were able to correctly infer vaginal orgasm more than 80 percent of the time by watching the way the women walked. Further analysis revealed that the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation was greater for the vaginally orgasmic women.

"This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine," the authors note.

A woman's anatomical features may predispose her to greater or lesser tendency to experience vaginal orgasm, the authors speculate.

We're sure you'll have jokes about how those Olympian speedwalkers must be great in bed... share them if you must.

Via UPI.

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God, We're Just Sayin'...

Emily Farris — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:43:00 GMT

A new study from the UK claims that intelligent people are less likely to believe in God.

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, who conducted the research, claims that religious belief declined across 137 developed nations in the 20th century — a time when humans were becoming more intelligent.

Lynn's ideas are, of course, being challenged, and referred to as "simplistic." While we have to agree that they're a little simplistic (at least as far as they're set forth in the news article, we've known plenty — okay a handful — of intelligent people who believed in God. But we have to admit that even those people challenged the very ideas of the God that were set before them, in say, The Bible.

Scanner Emily's conclusion: following anything blindly — especially The Bible — is not so intelligent. But let's give the folks that believe in something a little wiggle room, eh?

[Telegraph: Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God']

Related:

Does the Establishment Clause Exclude Santa Claus?

Was Jesus a Child of Rape?

Fact: Jesus Had Short Hair

The Second Coming: Sin-Free Sex Toys for Christians

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Don't Try This at Home: Penis Cream to Prevent the Transmission of HIV

Emily Farris — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:59:00 GMT

Because people are always trying to find a way around using condoms (which we understand, but you just have to do it) and in some cultures just won't wear them for whatever reason, researchers in Melbourne have discovered that rubbing oestrogen on the head of a penis could help prevent the transmission of HIV.

Regular topical applications of oestrogen on the head of the penis could increase "could induce a thickening of the keratin layer of the foreskin epidermis in the same way as it acts in the vagina.”

We weren't aware of how keratin works in the vagina, but apparently, it acts as a barrier for viral infections, which helps prevent the spread of diseases.

But first of all, if this is really being developed for use in countries where circumcision and condoms are rare, how much more likely is it than men will use this? And, um, how are they actually going to test this to make sure it works? "Sir, we'd like to pay you one million dollars to be part of a clinical study where you get to have lots and lots of sex. But you might get HIV...Okay, okay. One point five million."

[Science Daily via BoingBoing]

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"Nerve O" Will Rock Your Sex Life, Nose

Emily Farris — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:01:00 GMT

Researchers have discovered a new sex nerve in humans. "Nerve O," has endings in the nasal cavity and might explain why some people might like to bury their heads in the underarms of their partners after sex (what? is that weird?), er, are attracted to potential mates' smells.

But it's not about conscious smell, it's about cues that smells send to our brains about other people.

Research has also shown that these unconscious cues processed in Nerve “O” can make or break a relationship. Couples who have high levels of chemicals in common are more likely to encounter fertility issues, miscarriage and infidelity. The more dissimilar you and your partner’s chemical makeup, the better chance you will have at successfully procreating and staying together.

While reading the article though, we were thinking about how we're actually attracted to men whose, uh, post-workout smell is similar to that t-shirt we wear way too often. And then we got to this part:

However, if you are taking a hormonal contraceptive, you might be bucking an evolutionary tide. Women who are on the pill are more likely to be attracted to men with similar chemical makeup — most likely because their bodies are fooling them into believing they are pregnant, and so much like actual pregnant women, their Nerve “O” leads them to kin and not mates. So if you were on the pill when you met your mate, you might experience a diminishing attraction when you cease taking it.

Iiiiiiinteresting. (Fuck.)

[MSNBC: Scientists discover secret sex nerve]

Image via www.flatrock.org.nz

Get Ready: The Human-Animal Hybrid Embryos Are Coming

Emily Farris — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:36:00 GMT

If you could choose to make a human-animal hybrid, what animal would you choose?

Two scientists in the UK have won approval to create human-animal hybrid embryos for "medical research."

The long-running issue of whether to allow production of the embryos - using human DNA implanted into animal eggs - has in the past prompted sensational headlines about "Frankenbunnies". A government white paper published in December 2006 after public consultation originally announced that the creation of chimeras - organisms consisting of at least two genetically different kinds of tissue - and other kinds of interspecies embryos would be banned.

"Frankenbunnies." That's kind-of what we were thinking.

[The Guardian: Q&A: Hybrid embryos]