Socio-Biology SocioBiology Gaia Church

SOCIO-BIOLOGY

Know others,
that you might understand yourself. ~JKH

Skip down to "LINKS".
. . See also: the sex file.

The Biological Rules:
(incomplete)

Where there is something to eat, there will be something to eat it.
There will always be a balance of plant/herbivore, predator/prey.
Try to be one of the eaters, not one of the eaten.
Try to reproduce yourself, or prepare for it... at all times.
. . A: Reward attempts.
. . . . 1: Instant gratification
. . . . 1: Seminal "Joy Juice"(see below); Females: get it! / Males: get rid of it!

It's been said that humans are "bags of mostly water". That's true only on the atomic level. Life is not a Kg of this and a gram of that --you can get all that for $1.98. No; life is all in the arrangement of those ingredients. And, notwithstanding a few stray atoms of gold or neon in there, we have NO solitary atoms in our bodies. All are bound up in molecules. Most, numerically, are proteins. In the important stuff, we are bags of mostly proteins.
. . Our genes control the manufacture of them, and they, in turn, control all our functions. This includes a lot of our behaviors. We call them instinctive, and have numbered several. But there are probably thousands! Tiny preconceptions, predelictions, influences and leanings. The insistences of evolution.

This is the study of SOCIO-BIOLOGY.

While the basic idea overwhelmed me with an explanation that let so many disparate facts fall gently into a relationship --a coherent whole-- there are many ideas under the genre that are slightly to totally wrong... of course. It's to be expected, & in the long run, a good thing. It'll all get wrung out.
. . Basically, the theory gives us the genetic basis for our motivations.
. . Now we know why:

. .
"Studs" are "ok", but "sluts" are not.
. .
Teenage boys show off.
. .
Women want marriage/committment, men don't.
. .
Women want extravagant gifts at the worst times, like wedding rings.
. .

"Men just don't understand women." . "Women never understand men." *
. . Everybody thinks that every member of the other gender is wrong. There's such a heavy cultural overlay that the reality is lost --especially because it has to do with sex! Sorry, Victorians, but that's reality. We are ruled by our biology just as much as any other species. An understanding of the differing drives and motivations of our genders will clear it all up for you in a flash. Women have been de-programmed to reject the fact that they're here to reproduce... sexually. That said, it may be said that women aren't aware of what they want.

From ExploreZone.com: "90% of all bird species pair-bond; while only 3% of mammal species, which includes humans, enter into monogamous relationships." This % has continually dropped from past numbers. Think it has stopped? Note that "pair-bond" does NOT mean "faithful"!
. . When monogamous animals bond and mate to raise their young, they are practicing "social monogamy", or what is called in humans, "marriage". But genetic monogamy --sexual fidelity-- is rare. One study of 180 of those species thought to be socially monogamous, found that only 10% are truly faithful.
. . This research is backed up by genetic analyses of animal offspring. For example, several studies of socially monogamous birds show that from 15 to 70% of the chicks raised by male-female pairs are not fathered by the male.
. . A Swiss study of upper middle class families showed very few children not directly related to their fathers. On the other hand, an English study showed that up to 40% of children in lower income families there... are *not fathered by the men who raise them & think the child is theirs." [end of .com quote]

Hmmm... doesn't the 40% figure imply that the women are actually trying to conceive elsewhere?!
. . Let's put it in other terms and... in a way that will turn out to be non-judgemental and surprisingly obvious. The human sexual function is to achieve reproductive success --survival of the species. The two genders do this in different ways --tho I may put this in common: have the most children possible, consistent with their own success. That means having dozens is out --they woudn't be taken care of well enough to become successful themselves, as adults.
. . Men are often criticized for doing what their genes force them to do. The species is most successful when the best-adapted males out-breed those less so... with as many females as possible.
. . Women have a different strategy, and somewhat opposed to that of men --hence the criticism. Women may best achieve breeding success by... well, let's look at birds.
. . Female birds get an advantage in this strategy: find a mate who's good at providing nest & food. Then find another "quicky" mate who's good at passing on the best genes for her chicks. Biologists find this in all species. We can see this played out in human society too. Is there any human tale that does not revolve around survival & reproduction? Even the drive for power is just a means to that end.
. . The test of the English poor-family children shows that the female of the species may be just as criticized as the male. But they get away with it much more often. And it shows that the setup of our societies is at odds with our biology. Is there any society (outside of California ;-) ) that accepts the reality of both?

When I first heard of this theory, it made mountains of jumbled information fall neatly into place.
. . We used to think that other species were more monogamous than ours. One by one, we've dropped the names of almost all species from this list.
. . Reproductive strategy differs between the sexes. (the "strategy" of evolution, not the individual's choices.) Men would pass on their genes most successfully if they inseminated one female and moved on to the next one, never to return. Females are most successful if they are inseminated by one male, who stays around and helps raise his offspring. Obeying the female's strategy goes against his natural genetic drive, whereas if she obeys his drive, she gets no help.
. . Hence all human drama, from Hamlet on down!

Nature's big double-bind on unlimited reproduction: "You must do what, if you're very successful at it, will kill you all!" (over-population to famine)

In evolutionary theory, fitness is a measure of an organism's ability to transfer its genes onto the next generation. It is not that a person who is stronger and smarter is fitter. This may or may not be the case. In an environment where food sources are scarce and one may have to live off of insects, for instance, the energy costs of having to maintain large muscles may make the strong person less fit.
. . Either gender looks for signs of health in a prospective mate. Complexion, male risky behavior (stotting), wasteful production (peacock tail), female: full breasts --only a small amount of which is functional in milk-production.
. . (Curiously, what all humans see as beautiful (& don't know it) is to have a ratio of .7 to 1. All over the face, certain critical measurements have that ratio. Also... waist-to-hips, etc.)

Studies have shown that when women are in their fertile period, they go out more often, wear less clothing & show more skin, tho they're seldom aware that they do.
. . Like birds, human females pick a good "nest-builder" to build a good home for her offspring, and a good physical specimen to sire her offspring --and it's not necessarily the same male. There's a logic to that.
. . Let's emphasize... it's not a moral question. Here, we speak only of evolutionary demands. That female bird makes the best choices for the sake of her chicks. She gets the best of both.

Brightly colored feathers make parrots appealing to people, but it takes a genuinely sexy glow to get other parrots excited. Both male and female budgies were much more likely to flirt with members of the opposite sex whose alluring radiance was not blunted by sunscreen. Birds are able to see fluorescence in daylight, unlike humans. The fluorescent colors are expensive to produce, biologically speaking, so they function as a good pointer for picking the fittest possible reproductive-mate (as opposed to "nest-builder").

It's not only the whole animal --think of the harems of the Elk-- that fights with other males for the attentions of the female.
. . A study tested the sperm of a husband before and after she went on an extended trip. His sperm-count shot way up on her return. The speculative reason stated was that he realized that she may well have been inseminated with other sperm, and his system compensated as well as it could, by flooding her with his own "warriors". (See the book "Sperm Wars") This is without his knowledge, as even scientists didn't know this happened till lately.
. . Evolution does all this because it works, not for the sake of any individual. It makes social trouble. More human drama.
. . She, on the other hand, averages higher body temps and less menstrual activity on these trips. More studies are doubtless under way.
. . Some sperm --that were once thought to be merely defective swimmers-- lag behind and tangle (literally) with poorer or later injections. This insures that a bigger portion of his best sperm --and less of anyone else's-- get to the goal.
. . (BTW, the "flagella" that drives the sperm-cell is misnamed. It does not "whip", it literally screws. (no pun intended.) It's the only known rotary joint in nature.)

Conjecture: Is there an optimal ratio of "nest-builders" to "bad-boys"? Does evolution select the ratio, as it does for gender ratio?
. . Also, as to crime --is there a "predator/prey" ratio that will out, regardless of law enforcement?

[darn --donno if I wrote this next paragraph. sorry.] Socio-biology states that genetics is the sole factor responsible for basic behavior patterns in humans and animals. There are three types of sociobiology. Broad sociobiology deals with general behavioral tendencies present in animals and humans. Narrow sociobiology is based on the evolutionary theory and focuses on the genetic aspects of behavior in most animals and humans. Narrow sociobiology adamantly rejects the notion that culture can affect behavior. Pop sociobiology uses the argument of Narrow sociobiology, and relates the evolutionary theory to human nature. When ant workers die in defense of their nests, they are more likely to increase the likelihood of their genes' survival, even though they died in the effort.

Think of the work you do in budgetary terms. What percent of your waking hours are spent in mowing the lawn, etc.?
. . Male Bowerbirds (like male of most species) use "waste effort" on displays to entice the female to mate with someone who has that much energy that could be used on feeding young (--or just to sire them). Sooo... what are we trying to prove with lawns? And to who?!

Biology is a competition to reproduce. Marriage is a compromise effort to try to make everyone win. Don't expect it to work too well!

There's far less difference between people's sex-drives than there is in their different *suppressions* of drive. ~JKH

I think we should say "affectional orientation", not "sexual preference.

Soc-bio notes: Beauty is a certification of health.
. . Women are attracted to different men at different points in their monthly cycle. He-man or gentle.
. . Women want men who are very attractive to other women, so they'll have better reproductive success with their handsome sons!
. . Hairier women have more testosterone, so are hornier...
. . Blondes more attractive? Women get permanently darker hair after first pregnancy --when it's "too late".
. . Both Twiggy and MM had the same .7/1 ratio of waist/hip.
. . Symmetric men are subconsciously assumed to be healthy & have good genes. Infected sinuses deform facial bones. Women become more symmetrical when they're fertile. Symmetric men are bigger, taller, their women have more intense orgasms. More-symmetric men (t-shirt sniff-test) actually "smell better" in tests with women.

NEWS ITEMS

Very related news is in the sex file.)
. . and see the soc file up to 1-1-07. file.)

Jun 24, 09: Evolution appears to have hard-wired men to suspect their lovers of cheating. This tendency, described in a study, may be one of many so-called cognitive biases —-“psychological mechanisms that were selected not because they perceived the world accurately, but because they perceive the world inaccurately”.
. . Cognitive biases are a useful mechanism for dealing with uncertain but potentially important information. For example, people are more likely to perceive male figures walking in place as approaching rather than leaving. They also tend to overestimate vertical distances, and to assume that large animals are sleeping rather than dead. The possible evolutionary advantages of such instincts are obvious. It’s better to flee sooner rather than later from a mugger, to realize that a fall is dangerous before you’ve jumped, and to let sleeping dogs lie.
. . According to Goetz and Causey, whose poll of 60 men and 89 women found the former prone to suspicions of infidelity, assuming the worst could be especially useful to men. Infidelity poses certain risks —-such as contracting sexually transmitted diseases-— to both sexes, but the burdens of cuckoldry are greatest to men. Though an unfaithful woman still gives birth to her own child, her unwitting partner devotes time and energy to raising a rival’s offspring. “The sum of these costs provided selection pressure for the evolution of an arsenal of anti-cuckoldry tactics in men."

Jun 24, 09: You’re in a loud and sweaty Italian dance club when a woman approaches you. To be heard over the techno, she leans in close and yells into your ear, “Hai una sigaretta?”
. . If she spoke into your right ear, you would be twice as likely to give her a cigarette than if she asked by your left ear, according to a new study that employed this methodology in the clubs of Pescara, Italy. Of 88 clubbers who were approached on the right, 34 let the researcher bum a smoke, compared with 17 of 88 whom she approached on the left.
. . Some work has shown that the left and right hemispheres of the brain appear to be tuned for positive and negative emotions, respectively. Talk into the right ear and you send your words into a slightly more amenable part of the brain.

June 11, 09: Male hummingbirds, swooping in an effort to impress females, achieve speeds "faster than fighter jets", according to a study. A US researcher has captured the birds' dives with super-fast cameras. He lured them into their impressive displays using stuffed models of female birds. The feathered acrobats reached speeds of almost 400 body lengths per second.

Mar 20, 09: Female Gouldian finches "decide" to have more male chicks if they are less compatible with their mate.
. . The birds, which have either red or black heads, prefer to mate with males with the same head coloring, as this signifies a better genetic match. Chicks from a mismatched mating --particularly the females-- are weaker and more likely to die very early. A report says that the birds compensate for this by having more male chicks in their brood.
. . In birds, the sex of an egg is already determined before it is fertilized by the male. Sarah Pryke, a biologist, found that when female finches mate with mismatched males, 70% of their chicks are male.
. . Color-matched matings, which result in much healthier broods, always produce roughly equal numbers of male and female chicks.
. . "Females really don't want to mate with a male with a different head color."But there simply aren't enough compatible males, so later in the mating season, they seem to use this control to make the best of a bad situation."

Feb 15, 09: Rather than compete for females, male long-tailed manakins pair up to perform their courtship song and dance.

Feb 12, 09: Don't be jealous. The Brad Pitts of the world may be good for your relationship. Psychologists have found that after meeting an available, attractive guy, women are more likely to work to strengthen their current relationships. The study ran lab-based experiments of more than 700 college men and women.
. . In one experiment, women either met a single guy who flirted with them or an unavailable man who ignored them. Women who met the single guy were about 18% more likely to say they'd forgive their significant others for lying about the reason for canceling a date or other irritating behavior. In a similar situation, men who met a hot, single woman were about 12% less likely than other men to forgive partners' annoying behavior.

Jan 14, 08: The entire human genome could be deciphered and the brain's intricate systems decoded before biologists have answered the seemingly simple question of which male sweat chemicals —-if any-— really do drive the ladies crazy.
. . If such a chemical does exist, it's likely a pheromone —-a chemical used by members of the same species to communicate. Formally identified half a century ago this month, they've been found throughout the animal kingdom, but not in humans. Scientists, however, are trying.
. . The most suggestive research comes from George Preti of the Monell Chemical Senses Center. Preti found that male armpit sweat dabbed on the upper lips of women stimulates production of ovulation-triggering luteinizing hormone.
. . For all its popular sexiness, pheromone research is a hard sell to grantmakers more interested in curing disease. It's also just plain hard. "We produce a large number of compounds, and bacteria ferment our secretions", said Wyatt. "You're trying to find a few active compounds from a forest of thousands of compounds" —-and to top it off, they might only work in particular combinations, making their isolation even harder.

Jan 14, 08: Women with high levels of estrogen not only look and feel prettier --but they may act on those feelings by moving from man to man, U.S. researchers reported.
. . Estrogen, the so-called female hormone, affects fertility and has been shown to make women dress more provocatively and show more thrill-seeking behavior.
. . They found that young women felt more attractive when they had high levels of an estrogen known as estradiol, and they acted on those feelings. "Women with higher estradiol reported a greater likelihood of flirting, kissing and having a serious affair with someone other than their primary partner and were marginally more likely to date another man."
. . "Results provide support for the relationship between physical beauty and fertility and suggest that women high in reproductive health engage in opportunistic serial monogamy --being open to affairs and moving on to a new relationship if a higher-quality mate becomes available."
. . "High-estradiol women were considered significantly more physically attractive by themselves and others", Durante and colleagues wrote. The high-estrogen women also reported more sexual behavior --especially outside of a relationship, although it was not linked to one-night stands.
. . "Our results are consistent with the possibility that highly fertile women are not easily satisfied by their long-term partners and are especially motivated to become acquainted with other, presumably more desirable, men", they concluded.

Jan 13, 08: Neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding — and, not incidentally, explaining humans’ peculiar erotic fascination with breasts — Dr. Young predicts that it won’t be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink.
. . That’s the bad news. The not-so-bad news is that you may enjoy this potion if you took it knowingly with the right person. But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn’t mentioned in Dr. Young’s essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing.
. . Love was correctly identified as a potentially fatal chemical imbalance in the medieval tale of Tristan and Isolde, who accidentally consumed a love potion and turned into hopeless addicts. Even though they realized that her husband, the king, would punish adultery with death, they had to have their love fix.
. . When a female prairie vole’s brain is artificially infused with oxytocin, a hormone that produces some of the same neural rewards as nicotine and cocaine, she’ll quickly become attached to the nearest male. A related hormone, vasopressin, creates urges for bonding and nesting when it is injected in male voles (or naturally activated by sex). After Dr. Young found that male voles with a genetically limited vasopressin response were less likely to find mates, Swedish researchers reported that men with a similar genetic tendency were less likely to get married. In his Nature essay, Dr. Young speculates that human love is set off by a “biochemical chain of events” that originally evolved in ancient brain circuits involving mother-child bonding, which is stimulated in mammals by the release of oxytocin during labor, delivery and nursing.
. . This hormonal hypothesis, which is by no means proven fact, would help explain a couple of differences between humans and less monogamous mammals: females’ desire to have sex even when they are not fertile, and males’ erotic fascination with breasts. More frequent sex and more attention to breasts, Dr. Young said, could help build long-term bonds through a “cocktail of ancient neuropeptides,” like the oxytocin released during foreplay or orgasm.
. . What if, like Tristan, you developed an overwhelming emotional connection to your boss’s spouse? Even if the effects could somehow be targeted to the right partner, would you want to start building a long-term relationship with a short-term drug? What happens when it wears off?
. . A love vaccine seems simpler and more practical, and already there are some drugs that seem to inhibit people’s romantic impulses. Such a vaccine has already been demonstrated in prairie voles.
. . “If we give an oxytocin blocker to female voles, they become like 95% of other mammal species”, Dr. Young said. “They will not bond no matter how many times they mate with a male or hard how he tries to bond. They mate, it feels really good and they move on if another male comes along. If love is similarly biochemically based, you should in theory be able to suppress it in a similar way.”
. . I doubt many people would want to permanently suppress love, but a temporary vaccine could come in handy. Spouses going through midlife crises would not be so quick to elope with their personal trainers; elderly widowers might consult their lawyers before marrying someone resembling Anna Nicole Smith. Love is indeed a many-splendored thing, but sometimes we all need to tie ourselves to the mast.

Dec 10, 08: A man's genetic make-up may play a role in whether he has sons or daughters, a study of hundreds of years of family trees suggests. Newcastle U researchers found men were more likely to have sons if they had more brothers and vice versa if they had more sisters.
. . They looked at 927 family trees, with details on 556,387 people from North America and Europe, going back to 1600. The same link between sibling sex and offspring sex was not found for women.
. . The precise way that genes can influence baby sex remains unproven. But the Evolutionary Biology study could clear up a long-standing mystery --a flood of boy babies after World War I.
. . He found that within families, boys with lots of brothers were more likely to have a higher number of sons themselves and those with lots of sisters were more likely to have lots of daughters. Dr Gellatly said it was likely that a genetic difference affected the relative numbers of "X" and "Y" sperm within those produced by the man.
. . This gene, while only active in the man, could be carried by men and women. "The family tree study showed that whether you're likely to have a boy or a girl is inherited."
. . He said that the effect was to actually balance out the proportion of men and women in the population. "If there there are too many males in the population, for example, females will more easily find a mate, so men who have more daughters will pass on more of their genes, causing more females to be born in later generations."
. . In the years after World War I, there was an upsurge in boy births, and Dr Gellatly said that a genetic shift could explain this. The odds, he said, would favor fathers with more sons --each carrying the "boy" gene-- having a son return from war alive, compared with fathers who had more daughters, who might see their only son killed in action. However, this would mean that more boys would be fathered in the following generation, he said.

Dec 10, 08: Research suggests that the degree of loneliness that any two people feel in a particular situation may vary widely, partly because of genetics. In fact, loneliness is half inherited, half environmental, says John Cacioppo, director of the U of Chicago's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.
. . In his recent book "Loneliness", with co-author William Patrick, Cacioppo defines loneliness in terms of the need for social connection and notes that a person can feel lonely even in a large crowd. At any given time, about 60 million people in the U.S. feel so isolated that it's a major source of unhappiness, the book says.
. . Part of the explanation for loneliness is evolutionary, experts say. Humans would not survive in the wild alone --imagine trying to fend off a wild beast with a stick by yourself-- so they feel a negative signal when they are disconnected from others, Cacioppo said.
. . Variation in loneliness among people also has an explanation in evolutionary biology. If everyone had a high sensitivity to loneliness, no one would go out and explore. But if everyone had a low sensitivity to social disconnection, no one would stay back, take care of others, and help those in need, even at personal expense. Dec 10, 08: Recent research suggests that non-lonely people tend to marry non-lonely people and lonely people tend to marry lonely people, Cacioppo said. People who are chronically lonely tend to want to avoid others.
. . Both in friendships and in marriages, trust, honesty and forgiveness are key. A common misconception is that the most popular person is the least lonely, he said. "It's really having one good relationship is all that it takes", Cacioppo said. "Spending all your time online getting 4,000 friends on Facebook is not useful. The number is not where connection occurs."

Nov 22, 08: When you're a social animal, all of the evolutionary pressures are toward living in a group. There are hierarchies. There are mechanisms for resolving disputes in nonlethal ways. That can all be summed up under empathy. But humans and chimpanzees, when they are fighting an out-group, have the ability to turn off the empathy. By turning that off, you dehumanize the enemy or dechimpize the enemy.
. . When you're a mammal, women can only have a limited number of children. Their sexual agenda is to be as selective and to get support from that mate. Whereas the males amongst chimpanzees and to some extent among human beings, the more sexual partners they can get, the more likely they pass their genes to next generation. So the males are competing.
. . Most peoples, not the number of people, but the number of cultures, are monogamous. Men are intrinsically risk-taking and are less selective in their sexual partners and once you get this team aggression in a primate, a new set of things kick in. You add all those things together and you've got a pretty fearsome male animal. That's why I call testosterone the perfect weapon of mass destruction.
. . As soon you can kill from a distance, the calculus begins to shift and that barrier begins to drop. You take it up a notch to a bow-and-arrow, and maybe that you can shoot from behind a tree, and you can kill without being detected yourself. Your risk goes down to near zero. So, what happens, as you increase the sophistication of the killing technology and your ability to kill from a distance, you decrease the barriers to launching an attack, so you increase the amount of war and violence.
. . We have the evolved traits necessary to turn off that empathy. But that doesn't mean there isn't any free choice and there is a lot of environmental circumstance. Nature provides the possibilities and nurture helps shape what actually happens.
. . Wired.com: Does the study of the bonobos, another close primate relative of humans who are noted for their peaceful behavior, add anything to the discussion of sex and war? Hayden: I think it does. Chimpanzees and bonobos are sort of a Rorschach test for humanity. Do you see us as warring, meat eaters or vegetarian peace lovers who apparently solve all their problems by having sex?
. . You can look at it as trying to figure out what we can do and how we can shape our world so that our bonobo comes out more than our chimpanzee nature. And when you get right down to it, who wouldn't rather be a bonobo?

Oct 22, 08: E.O. Wilson and Hölldobler first explored the concept of superorganisms in The Ants. Could large groups of animals function together as a single entity with distributed intelligence? Did evolution work through such groups, selecting at the group level rather than the individual? The implications were staggering, not only for bugs but also for humans. Group evolution meant that altruism and self-sacrifice — i.e., morality — might be as much a part of our genetic heritage as hair and eye color. Many prominent biologists, led by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, said no, there was no such thing as a superorganism: Evolution worked on the genes of self-serving individuals only, not groups.
. . Cybervisionaries saw in the superorganism an ideal way of describing the networked global brain that they were just beginning to imagine. The idea meant the singularity might be nearer than anyone thought. Wired's Kevin Kelly drew on Wilson's theories for the conceptual framework of the Hive Mind, humanity's emerging cognitive interconnectedness. Even today, Kelly is writing about the One Machine and the Technium, a neologism he defines as "a superorganism of technology."

Sept 22, 08: Men who grow up thinking women should stay at home may be labelled "old-fashioned" - but could end up well ahead in the salary stakes. A US study suggests that they will consistently out-earn more "modern-thinking" men. On average, this meant an extra $8,500 (£4,722) a year. One UK psychologist said men inclined to wield power in their relationships might also do this at work.
. . Conversely, women who held the opposite view did earn slightly more, on average $1,500 more than women with "traditional" views.

Sept 3, 08: Women tend to choose husbands who look like their fathers, a study shows. And it works both ways --the women in the Proceedings B study also resembled their partner's mother. Yet more evidence for the phenomenon, known as sexual imprinting.
. . Others have shown women use dads as a template for picking a mate even if they are adopted, suggesting imprinting is led by experience not simply genes. This notion is backed by other work showing the imprinting link is lost on women who did not have good relationships with their fathers.

Sept 2, 08: A man's reluctance to marry may be down to a genetic 'flaw', say researchers. Men who inherit a genetic variant that affects an important attachment hormone are prone to marital strife and are less likely to wed, work suggests. Animal studies have shown the same hormone --vasopressin-- affects voles' abilities to remain monogamous.
. . The researchers examined the DNA of 552 sets of twins, all of whom were in a long-term relationship and had children. Some were living with their partner and others were married. The men and women were asked a series of questions about their relationship and the answers were then compared to their genetic make-up.
. . Men with the 334 version of the AVPR1A gene earned lower scores from their partner/wife for strength of relationship bond. They were also less likely to be married. If they were married, they were more likely to have experienced marital problems. Having two copies of 334 doubled the chances that men would report having had a marital crisis in the past year.
. . It is thought that the gene, which was carried by 40% of the men, may affect the way the brain uses vasopressin. The same gene has been linked with autism --a condition characterized by problems with social interaction.
. . There could be evolutionary benefits to possessing the 334 variant. "There is potentially an advantage if the objective is to survive and spread your genes. But there are advantages of being monogamous and having the support of a family. It's never a one way street. Like many things in nature, there is a trade off and genes tend to favor their own transmission."

Aug 13, 08: Birth-control pills could screw up a woman's ability to sniff out a compatible mate, a new study finds. While several factors can send a woman swooning, including big brains and brawn, body odor can be critical in the final decision, the researchers say. That's because beneath a woman's flowery fragrance or a guy's musk the body sends out aromatic molecules that indicate genetic compatibility.
. . Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are involved in immune response and other functions, and the best mates are those that have different MHC smells than you. The new study reveals, however, that when women are on the pill they prefer guys with matching MHC odors.
. . MHC genes churn out substances that tell the body whether a cell is a native or an invader. When individuals with different MHC genes mate, their offspring's immune systems can recognize a broader range of foreign cells, making them more fit.
. . Past studies have suggested couples with dissimilar MHC genes are more satisfied and more likely to be faithful to a mate. And the opposite is also true with matchng-MHC couples showing less satisfaction and more wandering eyes.
. . So the pill puts a woman's body into a post-mating state, even though she might be still in the game.

Mar 19, 08: News of politicians' extramarital affairs seems to be in no short supply lately, but if humans were cut from exactly the same cloth as other mammals, a faithful spouse would be an unusual phenomenon. Only 3% to 5% of the roughly 5,000 species of mammals (including humans) are known to form lifelong, monogamous bonds, with the loyal superstars including beavers, wolves and some bats.
. . Social monogamy is a term referring to creatures that pair up to mate and raise offspring but still have flings. Sexually monogamous pairs mate with only with one partner. So a cheating husband who detours for a romantic romp yet returns home in time to tuck in the kids at night would be considered socially monogamous.
. . Beyond that, scientists' definitions for monogamy vary. Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that men are more likely to have extramarital sex, partially due to the male urge to "spread genes" by broadcasting sperm. Both males and females, these scientists say, try to up their evolutionary progress by seeking out high-quality mates, albeit in different ways.
. . "The human species has evolved to make commitments between males and females in regards to raising their offspring, so this is a bond", said Jane Lancaster, an evolutionary anthropologist at the U of New Mexico. "However that bond can fit into all kinds of marriage patterns - polygyny, single parenthood, monogamy."
. . The human species is almost unique amongst mammals in that fathers do invest in raising children. "We do have this pretty strong pair bond, and there's more paternal investment than in most other primates", said Daniel Kruger, a social and evolutionary psychologist at the U of Michigan's School of Public Health. "We're special in this regard, but at the same time like most mammals, we are a polygynous species." Kruger said humans are considered "mildly polygynous", in which a male mates with more than one female.
. . "There is plenty of evidence that males have less to lose than females by having extramarital sex", Lancaster said. "Having less to lose, it's easier for them to do it." Women, however, could lose "dad's" resources when it comes to raising their kids. "For women, the well-being of their children is not improved by promiscuity."
. . Some scientists view both social and sexual monogamy in humans as a societal structure rather than a natural state. "I don't think we are a monogamous animal", said Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the U of Washington in Seattle. "A really monogamous animal is a goose --which never mates again even if its mate is killed." She added, "Monogamy is invented for order and investment --but not necessarily because it's 'natural.'"
. . Bonobo societies "make love, not war", and their frequent sex is thought to strengthen social bonds and resolve conflict. This idea could explain why bonobo societies are relatively peaceful and their relatives, chimpanzees, which practice sex strictly for reproduction, are prone to violence.

Mar 14, 08: Many fallen politicians fit a personality type known as a "sensation seeker", defined in the early 1970s. Sensation seekers crave novel and intense experiences more than other people do, and, as part of that, they tend to have many sexual partners. "They get a bigger kick out of things", says Marvin Zuckerman, a pioneering psychologist and author of the 2006 book "Sensation Seeking and Risky Behavior." There's chemical evidence: sensation seekers have lower levels of monoamine oxidase A, which regulates the brain's levels of dopamine, the "pleasure" neurotransmitter.
. . Of course, loving life isn't always a bad thing: sensation seekers are often high-energy, high-functioning people. The problem is that they never seem to get enough excitement. For these types, the risk itself is part of the reward. "Breaking rules is a thrill for them", says Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple U. Alpha males are high on testosterone, the hormone that underlies almost all the typical traits of the politico-sexual animal: high levels of testosterone make for a high sex drive, a love of risks, aggressiveness and competitiveness.
. . Women's testosterone levels also rise when there's competition on the line, but the actual act of winning -—or, for that matter, losing—- doesn't have any effect on the levels either way. It's the game, not the outcome, that makes the difference for women. Success, then, may not set them off-balance the same way. Evolutionary psychology also suggests that women leaders wouldn't be as likely as men to get caught in sex scandals. "Men and women play different roles in reproduction, so I don't think that you'd see the same kind of pattern where high-status women would be more likely to seek out lots and lots of men", says Daniel Kruger, a research scientist at the University of Michigan who has studied risk-taking behavior. "That's not going to really benefit them that much because they're limited in the number of children they could have." Men, on the other hand, have more of a biological imperative to spread their genes far and wide--the kind of privilege that often comes with being an alpha male.
. . Bloggers and commenters have been floating the idea that Spitzer was subconsiously hoping to be caught. But that, at least, is one negative trait that psychologists hesitate to ascribe to him. "The idea of a death wish, that he was self-destructive -—I don't think there's a shred of reason to believe that", says Farley.
. . Instead, the opposite may be true: not only was Spitzer hoping to get away with something, he honestly thought he'd be able to. "It does have an element of Greek tragedy to it. There's a certain amount of hubris that goes with getting to the top", says Gladue. "You think you're invincible. You just don't think it could happen to you." Until, of course, it does.

Dec 12, 07: Six- and 10-month-old babies are much more capable judges of character than previously thought. Not only can infants pick out a good Samaritan, they tend to identify with them, according to a Yale study.
. . The study presented babies with a diorama-like display of an anthropomorphic circle struggling to make it up a hill. Just when it appeared that all hope was lost, a heroic triangle appeared, and pushed the circle to the top. The round climber bounces, clearly elated to have reached the summit. The same scenario is played out again, only this time a square appears at the top of the hill and pushes the circle to the bottom.
. . The babies were then asked to pick a toy –-the helper or the hinderer, as scientists called them. 100% of 6-month-olds and 87.5% of 10-month-olds chose the helper. The results were consistent even when the triangle and the square swapped places as good guy and bad guy. In several other iterations of the experiment, the helper, regardless of shape or color, won out.
. . While other research has shown that babies make assessments about people based on their physical appearance –-they gravitate toward attractive people-– these new findings show more complex levels of judgment. "In any species that needs to cooperate as much as humans do … we always need to know who might be a good cooperator and who might not," says Ms. Hamlin.

Dec 10, 07: Like father, like son—sexy fathers can give rise to sexy sons in the insect world. Researchers suggest these findings might also apply to humans.
. . Males often give showy displays to attract females in the animal kingdom -—from cricket songs to peacock plumes. Scientists had long assumed that attractive males can father attractive sons, but hard evidence supporting this idea is actually scant.
. . To see if attractiveness can be hereditary, researchers in England focused on the fruit fly Drosophila simulans. Males of the species cannot force sex, meaning any mating that happens is because of male charisma.
. . First, the scientists paired male and female flies at random. They found the length of time it took for them to have sex ranged from two minutes to two hours. The speed at which mating occurred suggests how attractive the males were. After each male mated with roughly three females, their sons were paired with single females, and the amount of time it took them to score was noted. The investigators found that attractive males indeed sired attractive sons.
. . But... "In the closely related standard lab fly, Drosophila melanogaster, there is no sons effect."

Dec 4, 07: In the land of romance, ladies might do well to shut their traps, while men can continue to blab.
. . That's the message of new research revealing that both men and women judge harshly couples in which the guy is a timid talker and the gal dominates conversations and shows assertiveness. The scientists suggest gender stereotypes are to blame for study participants' negative views of couples breaking the mold. Past research has found such mismatched couples (those that violate gender-role stereotypes) tend to be less satisfied.
. . "We reasoned because men are expected to be in a position of power over women, couples in which the woman is verbally dominating the man would be rated more harshly than couples that adhere to the traditional role", said lead author Jennifer Sellers.
. . Both men and women were more critical of the couple when the female partner was verbally assertive. They also viewed the submissive men as less competent than their loquacious counterparts. But when the roles switched and women bowed out of talking while men stood up to the plate, participants reported liking the couple, and they gave high competence scores to the men.
. . Whether or not we like to admit it, Sellers said, we take heed of gender stereotypes. And these societal limits can hurt both men and women alike. A recent study found that women are expected to miss more work than men, a societal view that could foster workplace discrimination.

Nov 29, 07: During decision-making tasks, men were more talkative than women, the studies showed, but when talking about themselves or working with children, women were more talkative than men.
. . Leaper said that these gender differences could have to do with differences in gender socialization; typically, women are socialized to be more comfortable talking about their feelings, while men are socialized to be dominant and take charge. "One gender isn't inherently more talkative than the other, it's just that a lot of times it depends on the situation and gender role influences", Leaper said.

Nov 28, 07: Choosy males and aggressive females --a role reversal has been found in the sexual behaviour of the topi antelope. Some males are so forcefully pursued by pushy females that they refuse the advances of previous partners.
. . According to research, this helps males conserve their sperm for the possibility of mating with new females. It therefore increases the chances of fatherhood with the widest possible number of partners.
. . "In cases where the male antelope was free to choose between females, he deliberately went for the most novel mate, rather than the most high-ranking."
. . He added: "However, some pushy females were so aggressive in their pursuit of the male that he actually had physically to attack them to rebuff their advances." Females are fertile for a single day only.
. . Dr Bro-Jorgensen said: "It is not uncommon to see males collapsing with exhaustion as the demands of the females get too much for them." He observed that each female would mate, on average, with four males, while some reached 12 different partners. And each individual would be mated with approximately 11 times, although one pair was observed together on 36 occasions.
. . "[The females must] ensure that they become pregnant, and preferably with a hotshot male, so they must focus all their energies on ensuring that males mate with them in that time." The synchronised mating activity, and the species' promiscuity, makes males the limited resource and females the competitive ones.
. . It is thought the females are interested in mating with several partners to ensure fertilisation, in case their first choice happens to have reduced sperm supply, or is genetically incompatible with them.

Nov 7, 07: A woman who walks with a seductive sway of her hips is unlikely to be ovulating, a finding that sheds light on the complex sexual signals that women give to men.
. . A team at Queen's U in Ontario, Canada, dressed female volunteers in suits which had light reflectors placed on the joints and limbs and filmed them walking in order to analyse their gait. The women also gave a saliva sample to assess their hormone levels.
. . Women who were in the fertile period of their menstrual cycle walked with smaller hip movements and with their knees closer together. Forty male volunteers were shown the footage of the women and were asked to rate those with the sexiest walk. The winners were those who turned out to be in the least fertile part of their cycle.
. . The study appears to run counter to recent research that found men respond more readily towards women at ovulation. A US paper published last month found that lap dancers earn more tips during their fertile period than during the non-fertile part of their cycle.
. . But, the Canadian researchers believe, there is no contradiction, because a fertile woman gives out "come-hither" signals at close range rather than at a distance. These signals come through scent molecules called pheromones and facial expressions. The proximity means a woman can vet a potential mate for fitness before allowing him to come close to her.
. . In contrast, men can pick up the attractiveness of a woman's walk from a long distance --and a "sexy" walk, visible from afar, could therefore act as an unwitting signal to less appealing males. So, having a less sexy walk at the time of ovulation gives a woman an evolutionary advantage: she can hide her fertile period from an undesirable man who might want to take advantage of her at the time.

Oct 18, 07: In humans and many other animals, males age faster and die earlier than females. New research suggests this might happen because of intense competition over sex.
. . Scientists compared monogamous species with polygynous species, in which each male mates with many females. Males in monogamous species, such as the barnacle goose or the dwarf mongoose, naturally compete less over females than ones in polygynous species, such as the red-winged blackbird or the savannah baboon.
. . After investigating about 20 different vertebrate species, researchers Tim Clutton-Brock and Kavita Isvaran at the U of Cambridge in England found the more polygynous a species was, the more likely their males were to age faster and die earlier than females.
. . The researchers explained that as competition among males for sex grows more intense, each male on average has less time to breed. As such, there is no strong incentive to evolve longevity among males in such species.
. . Bonobo societies "make love, not war", and their frequent sex is thought to strengthen social bonds and resolve conflict. This idea could explain why bonobo societies are relatively peaceful and their relatives, chimpanzees, which practice sex strictly for reproduction, are prone to violence.
. . Bonobos are highly promiscuous, engaging in sexual interactions more frequently than any other primate, and in just about every combination from heterosexual to homosexual unions.

Oct 4, 07: Fertility rates in birds can get a lift if the male anticipates that a sexual encounter is just around the corner, researchers from the U of Texas reported. The unorthodox study involved 28 male quails, 14 female quails, and two chambers: a green one near a noisy room and a white one on an isolated table.
. . The males were put into each of the chambers for a brief period daily over a period of five days. Half were given access to a female immediately after their time in the green chamber but not the white: for the other half it was the opposite. The male quails therefore came to associate one chamber with the act of copulation.
. . Using DNA testing the researchers then tracked the paternity of the eggs and found that the males who anticipated the act of copulation fertilized 72% of the eggs laid by the female quail.
. . The study concluded that the anticipation of mating appeared to induce them to produce more offspring. "It shows that psychological factors impact fertility and that learning has a lot to do with successful sexual behavior", said Domjan.

Sept 24, 07: If you want to have lots of kids, look for a Barry White instead of a Justin Timberlake. Men with a deep voices have more offspring, a new study suggests.
. . Previous studies conducted by David Feinberg of McMaster U in Canada have shown that women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, judging them to be older, healthier and more masculine than their higher-pitched rivals.
. . Men, on the other hand, go for women with higher pitched voices because they find them more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger-sounding. This relationship could give insight into the evolution of the human voices as well as how we choose our mates. "If our ancestors went through a similar process", Feinberg said, "this could be one reason why men's and women's voices sound different."
. . The researchers studied the Hadza tribe of Tanzania, one of the last true hunter-gatherer cultures. Because the Hadza have no modern birth control, the researchers were able to compare birth rates without any outside influencing factors. "We find in this new study that voice pitch is not related to offspring mortality rates."

Sept 18, 07: Whether we’re looking for someone to date or sizing up a potential rival, our eyes irresistibly lock on to good-looking people, a new study finds. Participants, all heterosexual men and women, fixated on highly attractive people within the first half-second of seeing them. Single folks ogled the opposite sex, of course. But those in committed relationships more often eyed beautiful people of the same sex.
. . Maner's research is based on the idea that evolution has primed our brains to subconsciously latch on to signs of physical attractiveness in others, both to find a mate and to guard him or her from potential competitors.
. . But this evolutionary trick is not without potential romantic peril. Even some people in committed relationships had trouble tearing their eyes away from attractive members of the opposite sex. On the other hand, fixating on attractive people of the same sex as rivals could contribute to feelings of insecurity. Maner found that men prone to jealousy kept a close eye on attractive potential rivals.
. . Maner's experiments, which flashed pictures of attractive men and women and average-looking men and women in front of participants and measured the time it took to shift their attention away from the image, surprisingly showed little difference between the sexes. “Women paid just as much attention to men as men did to women”, Maner said.

Sept 16, 07: When it comes to a man's body odor, the fragrance --or stench-- is in the nose of the beholder, according to U.S. researchers who suggest a single gene may determine how people perceive body odor. The study helps explain why the same sweaty man can smell like vanilla to some, like urine to others and for about a third of adults, have no smell at all.
. . They focused on the chemical androstenone, which is created when the body breaks down the male sex hormone testosterone. Androstenone is in the sweat of men and women, but it is more highly concentrated in men. How one perceives its smell appears to have a lot to do with variations in one odor receptor gene called OR7D4.
. . "It is well known that people have different perceptions to androstenone. But people didn't know what was the basis of it", Matsunami said. To find out, researchers in Matsunami's lab tested sweat chemicals on most of the 400 known odor receptors used by the nose to sniff out smells and chemicals.
. . They found the OR7D4 gene reacted strongly with the sex steroid androstenone. Next, they tested whether variations in this gene had an impact on how people perceived the smell of androstenone in male sweat. What they found is slight genetic variations determine whether androstenone has a pungent smell, a sweet, vanilla-like smell or no smell at all.
. . The role of androstenone is not well understood in humans, but in pigs it sends a powerful sex signal that puts sows in the mood for love. "There is some evidence published showing this chemical can modify the mood or hormone levels in humans", he said. "What we don't know is whether the receptor we found was in any way involved in this process." He and colleagues will further study this aspect to understand how smelling these chemicals might affect human social and sexual behavior.

Sept 3, 07: Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks. And guys won't be surprised to learn that women are much choosier about partners than they are.
. . Their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, "following Darwin's principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different."
. . Men's choices did not reflect their stated preferences, the researchers concluded. Instead, men appeared to base their decisions mostly on the women's physical attractiveness. Men tended to select nearly every woman above a certain minimum attractiveness threshold.
. . "Women made offers to men who had overall qualities that were on a par with the women's self-rated attractiveness. They didn't greatly overshoot their attractiveness", Todd said, "because part of the goal for women is to choose men who would stay with them." But, he added, "they didn't go lower. They knew what they could get and aimed for that level."
. . So, it turns out, the women's attractiveness influenced the choices of the men and the women.

July 9, 07: Muscular young men are likely to have more sex partners than their less-chiseled peers, researchers at the U of California Los Angeles said. Their study suggests muscles in men are akin to elaborate tail feathers in male peacocks: They attract females looking for a virile mate.
. . He said prior studies concluded a man's desirability was influenced more by his earning potential and commitment. His study found physical characteristics mattered more.
. . Women were more physically attracted to brawny men, especially for a fling. But when it comes to finding a long-term partner, they tend to pick a regular man over a mate with huge biceps.
. . Frederick and colleagues also asked 141 college women to look at six standardized silhouettes of men ranging from brawny to slender. Most preferred a toned man who was more likely to commit over a muscle-bound man they perceived as more volatile, aggressive and dominant.

July 5, 07: Men talk every bit as much as women do, U.S. researchers said after painstakingly counting every word that 400 volunteers spoke. Their study challenges the common wisdom that women are somehow biologically programmed to talk more -- but the researchers said people do often fulfill gender roles when it comes to subject matter. "Women and men both use on average about 16,000 words per day, with very large individual differences around this mean."
. . Mehl and colleagues had been struck by widespread assertions that women talk more each day than men, and have a bigger vocabulary. "The 20,000-versus-7,000 word estimates appear to have achieved the status of a cultural myth", they wrote. "The data suggest that women spoke on average 16,215 words and men 15,669 words over an assumed period of, on average, 17 waking hours."
. . The variation among the different men in the sample and among the women was far greater than the differences between the sexes as a group, Mehl said. "Just to illustrate the magnitude of difference, among the three most talkative males in the study, one used 47,000 words. The least talkative male spoke just a little more than 500", he said.
. . There were stereotypical difference in subject matter. "Men talk more about technology, work, money. They also use more numbers", he said. "Women talk more about fashion and about relationships." And both sexes can babble on senselessly. "Sometimes you find a stream of words but people don't say very much", he said.

Jun 19, 07: Women who have a male twin are less likely to marry and have children, perhaps because of being exposed to their brother's testosterone for nine months in the womb, researchers reported.
. . A study of Finnish twins showed that women were 25% less likely to have children if their twin was a male. Those who did have children gave birth to an average of two fewer babies than women who had a twin sister. Based on an analysis of 18th and 19th century data, researchers found women who had a male twin also were 15% less likely to get married.
. . Researchers have long known that fetuses are influenced by hormones in the womb. Because male and female fetuses have similar levels of the "female" hormone estrogen, girl twins are more likely to be affected by testosterone in the womb. "The success of males is unaffected by the sex of their cotwin."
. . Perhaps the female twins had more masculine attitudes and behaviors that affected their decision to get married, the researchers speculated. Male features could have made the women less attractive to mates, they added.
. . Other studies have shown, for instance, that exposure to testosterone in the womb affects facial features and even finger lengths. Also, exposure to elevated levels of testosterone during development can promote diseases that compromise fertility, such as reproductive cancers, the said.

May 2, 07: Several species of ducks have evolved complicated genitals in what appears to be an "arms race" between the sexes, researchers reported. And females may be coming out ahead.
. . Their findings not only open a window into a little-studied area of biology, but could help shed light on how evolution works to help both males and females control their own breeding, the researchers said.
Patricia Brennan of both Yale and Sheffield was trying to figure out why some species of birds have penises and some do not. "Birds are the only group where it mostly has been lost --97% of birds do not have phalluses at all." Instead, they mate using what biologists call a "cloacal kiss" --a brief touch of the single opening that birds of both sexes have for disposing of waste and that both eggs and sperm come out of.
. . Brennan noted that in many species, females choose a mate after he puts on an elaborate courtship display, and breeding pairs are often monogamous. An exception is ducks --especially mallards. Although mallards pair off to mate, females are often raped by stray males.
. . Yet studies show that these rapes do not pay off for the males. "Even in a species where 40% of the copulations are forced copulations, the ducklings still are mostly sired by the mates", Brennan said. "That implies the females may have some kind of mechanism that allows them to keep control of the paternity."
. . What they found surprised them --corkscrew-shaped oviducts, with plenty of potential dead-ends. "Interestingly, the male phallus is also a spiral, but it twists in the opposite, counterclockwise, direction", said Yale ornithologist Richard Prum.

"So, the twists in the oviduct appear designed to exclude the opposing twists of the male phallus. It's an exquisite anti-lock-and-key system." Brennan believes females evolved convoluted oviducts to foil the male rapists. "You can envision an evolutionary scenario that, as the male phallus increases in size, the female creates more barriers. You get this evolutionary arms race", Brennan said. Only if the female is relaxed and cooperative can the male's sperm get anywhere near the unfertilized eggs, the researchers suggest.
. . And it may mean something for people. "We can expect that these types of antagonistic traits are probably widespread and are likely part of the reproductive interactions of all sorts of animals, including humans", Brennan said.

Mar 15, 07: An hourglass figure has long been perceived to be the ideal figure for a woman to have. But New York U researchers have found that to be found attractive, a woman had to move in a feminine way --swaying her hips.
. . The participants rated women or "female" figures as more attractive if their hips swayed as they walked, while men were more attractive if they had the characteristic shoulder movement.
. . The research also confirmed the waist-hip ratio assumption, with women's attractiveness being rated higher if their waist-hip ratio was small and men's being higher if their ratio was large. The waist-hip ratio has long been thought to be key to Western perceptions of attractiveness. The ideal waist-hip ratio for women is to have a waist measurement which is no more than 70% of their hip measurement.
. . Men, the paper found, were more attractive if they moved with a "shoulder swagger".

Feb 15, 07: Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory.
. . The instinct evolved naturally and cannot be taught, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California Santa Barbara wrote in their report. Spending time in the same household and watching your mother care for your brother or sister is all it takes. This is all subconscious, of course, reported the researchers. [ Such taboos were even found in youngsters *not related, in Jewish communes. Marriages among kids raised together were rare.]

"These data show that the degree to which we feel those things is governed by these cues that, for hunter-gatherers, predict whether somebody is a sibling. And it works regardless of your beliefs --who you are told who your siblings are."
. . What determined incest disgust and altruism was the same --how much time an older sibling spent watching his or her mother care for a younger one, or how much time the two spent together in the same household.
. . The study contradicts the teachings of Sigmund Freud, who described Oedipal urges and conflicts, Cosmides said. He said Freud had a possible reason for his own feelings -- he had a wet nurse who cuddled and breastfed him: "Who their brain thinks is mom is different from who they consciously believe is mom. For them it is quite reasonable that they have an attraction to their mothers."

Feb 13, 07: Size matters in the science of sexual attraction --especially if you are a fish. Scientists at the U of Exeter and Glasgow have found that female green swordtail fish mature more rapidly if they spot a male with a big tail.
. . Likewise, young males retard their sexual development for several months if they spot a better-endowed male, waiting for there to be less competition in the mating game. "This is the first evidence that a species adjusts its rate of sexual maturation in response to visual clues," Craig Walling of Exeter U's school of biosciences said. "While our study focused on green swordtail fish, it seems unlikely that this attribute is limited to this one species", he added.

Jan 24, 07: Male fish, like humans, use a sophisticated form of logical reasoning to assess potential rivals, scientists said. By watching how other males perform in battles over territory, tiny African fish called cichlids decide which opponent they should take on and are likely to defeat to improve their social standing.
. . The type of reasoning, known as transitive inference, is learned by young children. It has also been shown in primates and rats but scientists at Stanford University in California are the first to demonstrate it in fish.
. . "Our experiment shows that male cichlids can actually figure out their odds of success by observation alone. From an evolutionary standpoint, transitive inference saves them time and energy", Fernald said.

Jan 4, 07: Women seem to judge potential mates by how masculine their features are, new research shows. Men with square jaws and well-defined brow ridges are seen as good short-term partners, while those with more feminine traits such as a rounder face and fuller lips are perceived as better long-term mates.
. . In the study, 854 male and female subjects viewed a series of male head shots that had been digitally altered to exaggerate or minimize masculine traits. The participants then answered questions about how they expected the men in the photos to behave.
. . Overwhelmingly, participants said those with more masculine features were likely to be risky and competitive and also more apt to fight, challenge bosses, cheat on spouses and put less effort into parenting. Those with more feminine faces were seen as good parents and husbands, hard workers and emotionally supportive mates. Despite all the negative attributes, when asked who they would choose for a short-term relationship, women still selected the more masculine looking men.
. . The new study's author, Daniel Kruger at the U of Michigan, said that from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense women would view more masculine-looking men as potential flings and less masculine-looking ones as long-term partners.
. . The key, he said, is testosterone, the hormone responsible for development of masculine facial features and other secondary sexual characteristics. Testosterone is necessary for development, but can also have detrimental health effects. It has been shown, for example, to interfere with the body's immune response, so men who are able to maintain high levels of the hormone are typically strong and healthy—traits women would want to pass on to their progeny.
. . Increased testosterone has also been linked to male cheating and violence in relationships, so while these men might produce high quality offspring, they don't always make great parents or faithful mates, Kruger says.
. . There are plenty of these signals in the animal world. Male peacocks' huge, outrageous tails can make foraging for food and evading predators difficult, but the plumage, which many researchers say indicates male fitness, is so effective at luring females that the trait has been preserved in the population.

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