Tomorrow is the first day of February, and the Valentine’s Day crap has hit the fan! Scientific American is feeling the love — the magazine has a series of articles about kissing, orgasms and monogamy. There are sexy little stories in New Scientist and the Daily Mail, too. Ready to snuggle up to some cold, hard facts?
1. Lips have the slimmest layer of skin on the human body; but lips are among the body parts most densely populated with sensory neurons. That’s why a kiss can send sensations over your whole body. Then again, so can ice cream.
2. A new study from Lafayette College examined key hormones in 15 couples before and after they kissed and before and after they talked to each other while holding hands. The researchers expected oxytocin (bonding) levels to rise and cortisol (stress) levels to fall. But the oxytocin levels rose only in the males. Chicks need more than a kiss and some hand-holding to bond! Still, stress-levels dropped for both sexes. Making out is the new (old) yoga!
3. Kissing can communicate messages that language cannot: A couple who had known each other since the eighth grade found themselves friends as college seniors — until, one night, he kissed her. A month later, he proposed; they have been married for 18 years. Swoon! Too sweet to snark. 4. You may know that women are “in heat” when they’re ovulating — but instead of promiscuity, this fertile phase of the cycle just makes them super picky. Dudes better come with their “A” games. 5. Well this one is kind of a “no shit” study, but apparently the feelings a woman has for her sexual partner are tied to how good her orgasms are. In other words, sex is better when you’re in love. 6. This is a titi monkey. These South American primates form strong relationships with their partners, and single (unpaired) male titis have different brain activity than monogamous males. Some dudes just aren’t hard-wired to settle down? You don’t say! 7. If you’re not attached, fed up with love and just wish you could do everything your own damn self, good news! In labs around the world, scientists are working on turning male cells into eggs and female cells into sperm. Sure, lesbian and gay couples eventually may be able to have children who are genetically their own… But maybe you just have one of those really good friends, who makes you think to yourself, if you were a dude, I’d have your baby? Science wants to make that happen!
Affairs of the Lips: Why We Kiss, Kiss and Tell , C’mere, Big Boy, Sex is Better for Women in Love, ‘Til Death Do Us Part [Scientific American]
Are Male Eggs And Female Sperm On The Horizon? [New Scientist]
Death Of The Father: British Scientists Discover How To Turn Women’s Bone Marrow Into Sperm [This Is London]