Results tagged “sex” from 60 Second Science

"Orgasm is a compelling, brief event that is an integration of cognitive, emotional, somatic, visceral, and neural processes," begin Barry R. Komisaruk, Carlos Beyer and Beverly Whipple in their sweet talking new article in The Psychologist.

They note that most previous studies of the orgasm have focused on how physical actions affect the body, but new research into the effects of drugs like anti-depressants on sex has shifted the focus to where it really belongs. The mind.

Inside our brain we have "orgasm accelerators" and "orgasm brakes." Hit the jump for the all-important differentiation.

Continue reading 'Happy Valentine's Day! Here's how orgasms work.' >

"Not to tonight, honey — I have a headache." Is there a more dreaded phrase in common parlance? I think not. But the wifey is either going to have to get more creative or buy a chastity belt, because recent research points to the idea that sex might actually cure migraine headaches, especially in women.

Oklahoma Health Sciences Center neurology professor James Couch first thought sex might cure headaches back in 1988, based on the context clues of a perhaps particularly randy patient.

"This lady said 'I really don't need a pill, I need a guy's phone number," [he said]. [...] The patient told Couch she had trouble curing her headaches since her husband had divorced her and she'd signed up for a pain treatment study.

Couch thought this was interesting, in a scientific way, of course. "A physiologic process — the climax — is turning off another physiologic process," said Couch.

The inquisitive Couch soldiered on, asking 84 female migraine patients what happened when they had sex during migraines. 61 percent reported some relief, which means for them, sex was comparable to modern migraine medications called triptans, which are thought to ease 60 to 80 percent of migraines. Even more impressively, 20 percent of women reported that sex cured their migraines completely, while triptans may cure migraines 30 percent of the time.

"Four women said it literally stopped the headache, period," said Couch. "No matter when the headache occurred, it stopped the headache cold."

Score one for...scoring! But there is some bad news, especially for men.

Continue reading 'Sex can sometimes cure headaches; world's housewives still 'not in the mood'' >

For all the men out there who just aren't ready to go under the knife, this plug is for you. Researchers in Australian researchers are designing a radio-controlled implant to keep the little guys from reproducing.

Rather than the likely permanent effects of a vasectomy, the radio-controlled implant can be turned on and off with a remote control.

"It will be like turning a TV on and off with a remote control," said team founder Derek Abbott, "except that the remote will probably be locked away in your local doctor's office to safeguard against accidental pregnancy or potential misuse of the device."

Although this method sounds like a go, a remote-controlled sperm plug is several years away from being put to use in the bedroom.

Continue reading 'The latest in birth control for men: Remote-controlled sperm plug' >

Today's 60 Second Science Podcast is brought to you by the anole family of lizard, because I caught hundreds as a youth:

Reptile Sex Determination Is Hot Topic

Full transcript after the jump...

Continue reading 'Reptile Sex Determination Is Hot Topic [podcast]' >

The pill has done great things for both men and women's sex lives. Now the 300 million women who have popped the pill can thank it for keeping cancer at bay, too.

The method of contraception hasn't always received great press. Studies have found it increases the risk for breast and cervical cancers.

But other research has found merits to the pill. According to a new study, the pill has prevented 200,000 deaths due to ovarian cancer.

Continue reading 'The Pill cuts cancer risk in half' >

People have long hypothesized that Columbus brought the basics of syphilis back with him when he returned to Europe from the New World. But it was always circumstantially based on the fact that the timing of the first recorded syphilis outbreak matched up. But we're not ones to indict an explorer based on circumstantial evidence. At least not when we can use science.

Kristin N. Harper, a researcher in molecular genetics at Emory University, led a study showing that the straing of Treponema pallidum causing the STD syphilis arose is closely related to a strain responsible for the nonvenereal infection yaws, particularly in a variety recently found in children in Guyana, the only known site of yaws infections today.

Continue reading 'Columbus: Good for "discovering" continents and bringing back STDs' >

Everyone gets a rise out of watching the 5 foot 8 receiver get jacked up by the 250 pound linebacker. Here's why 16 million viewers of Sunday Night football can't help but love watching the big hits.

The brain processes aggression as a reward, similar to the way it reacts to sex, food and drugs, according to new research.

In a series of experiments on mice, scientists discovered that mice will literally push the button willingly to introduce more aggression into their lives. Behaving just as they would for the good stuff.

"Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food,” says Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. “We have found that the ‘reward pathway’ in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved.”

Continue reading 'Aggression feels as good as sex, drugs, and rock and roll' >

Those Freakonomists are at it again: Steven Levitt teamed up with Columbia sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh to measure the economics of prostitutes in Chicago. After surveying various pimps, whores, and Chicago Police Department incident data, they discovered that street prostitution yields an average of $27 an hour. That's a lot better than Mickey D's, but then again, you don't have to worry about getting beaten to death when you're washing heads of lettuce.

But what's most shocking is that 3 percent of all tricks performed by prostitutes who fly solo without a pimp are "freebies" given to cops to keep from getting arrested. This bargaining tactic leads to prostitutes only getting arrested once every 450 tricks or so, which convinced the authors to conclude that "a prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one."

Ouch, Chicago's finest.

Continue reading 'More Freakonomics: Chicago cops sleep with more prostitutes than they arrest' >

Teenage me thought it was smooth as hell to turn to the girl next to me in choir--yes, choir--and offer to rub her shoulders before asking her out. Turns out it wasn't just a hormonal innovation. Now Dr. Michael Gumert, a primatologist at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, suggests that male macaque monkeys pay for sex by grooming their female counterparts.

"In primate societies, grooming is the underlying fabric of it all," Gumert told the Associated Press "It's a sign of friendship and family, and it's also something that can be exchanged for sexual services."

Continue reading 'Monkey sex now for sale cheap - only three picked nits and a French braid!' >

So, recently a bunch of Harvard undergrads got together and decided that science just isn’t sexy enough. Really? Here I was thinking it was too sexy. I mean, Hollywood continues to refashion the noble female scientist as after-midnight Skinemax fop-fodder, and will you take a look at all the preening groupie action on Michio Kaku’s Myspace friends list?

So how will they sate their cerebral-hormonal conflagrations? Concerned that science comes across as ”too geeky,” the group, dubbed The Zing, have organized a Valentine’s Day event called LoveFest. Oh baby, I like the sound of THAT!

Continue reading 'Harvard students think science too geeky, make it geekier' >

As chilling as it sounds, the notion of robot sex has emerged from the freaky fringe and become a new topic of debate and speculation in the mainstream. In large part thanks to Dr. David Levy's new book "Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships" published by Harper Collins in November.

Continue reading 'Robot sex is the latest buzz' >

Hey, World, tired of taking that guy and/or girl out for a nice, expensive dinner and then having your heart broken? I know I am. Well, fear not! Now you can just disclose personal information to CyberLover, a bot making the rounds in Russian chat rooms. It'll steal your heart. And your identity. "It has been designed as a robot that lures victims automatically without human intervention," said Sergei Shevchenko, a senior analyst at PC Tools.

Continue reading 'Russian flirt-bots fool Turing/lonely hearts' >

Okay, not really. But don't let that stop you from believing and recirculating this. This week's Anti-Scientist covers the strange life of an internet hoax so hilarious that it simply will not stop breaching the canons of (reportedly) scientific fact.

On April 4, 2000, Calmann-Lévy Publishers released a book on the Mir Space Station by Pierre Kohler, author of popular French-language astronomy books. He states there that through a video-taped experiment conducted in orbit, NASA determined which sexual positions were possible without "mechanical assistance" in zero gravity.

Kohler's source? "The internet."

Continue reading 'NASA Films Zero-Gravity Sex' >

The female condom has never been popular with the ladies. It's never won over guys either. It is clumsy, cold, stiff and sometimes painful. Not necessarily something steamy to climb into bed with.

The New York Times reports that scientists are bringing sexy back to the female condom with a redesign.

The new and improved female condom is made from a thinner polyurethane that transmits warmth better. Plus, it's lost an awkward diaphragm-like ring at its tip, which had to be folded into a figure 8 for insertion during the heat of the moment.

The only thing it's missing is an invisibility cloak.

Married women are one of the highest groups at risk of contracting AIDS. For many of these women, their husbands do not condone wearing a condom classified for either gender.

Continue reading 'Female condom gets a facelift' >

Man, have I learned this the hard way, through multiple face slaps and restraining orders. Still, new research backs up what the courts have been telling me for years:

The sway of a woman's hips is not intended to impress men. So say researchers who have found that women have the sexiest walk during the part of the monthly cycle when they are least fertile. The finding implies that women use a variety of signals to advertise their fertility to men, using some signals to advertise when they are ovulating and others to conceal the fact.

And here I was, thinking strippers taught me everything I needed to know about evolutionary biology.

Continue reading 'A sexy walk doesn't mean she's interested' >

That's interesting -- I thought women always avoided me because of the "You'll Never Love Me Like Mommy" t-shirt and the bloody icepick I carry around, but it turns out that I could've mitigated that if I only stared directly at them and smiled!

You can alter your attraction to the opposite sex simply by looking straight at them and smiling, research suggests. A study of hundreds of volunteers at Stirling and Aberdeen Universities found averting the eyes even a fraction can make you appear less attractive.

In the Royal Society's Proceedings B journal, they say the direction of gaze plays a role alongside a symmetrical face or healthy skin. An expert said it may stop people wasting energy on pointless courtships.

Continue reading 'No Duh Dept.: Increase your attraction to the opposite sex by looking straight at them and smiling' >

Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico wins today's Unsung Genius Award (UGA) for getting out of the lab, hitting the streets and taking his research to truly hallowed ground: the strip club. Humans were thought not to go into estrus like other mammals, but by measuring strippers' tips, Miller and his team of intrepid lap-dancees found that tips rose and fell to match the corresponding dancer's ovulatory cycle. Hot and informative!

Surveying strip-club lap dancers, who pe­r­form erot­ic dances for for cash, they found that tips vary by an aver­age of 45 pe­r­cent de­pend­ing on the time of the month, cor­re­spond­ing to the length of the ovu­la­tory cy­cle. That’s the one-month cy­cle in which a ripe egg is re­leased from the ovary, be­com­ing avail­a­ble for fer­til­iz­a­tion.

Continue reading 'Human females may actually go into heat; blogger demands more "in-depth" research' >