Science News for Writers

Not sure how this article will help anyone's fiction - directly - however, it is a cool factoid. As always, a link to the complete report is included in the attribution. Enjoy: Origins of the female orgasm explained Female orgasm seems to be a happy afterthought of our evolutionary past when it helped stimulate ovulation, a new study of mammals shows.  The role of female orgasm, which plays no obvious role in human reproduction, has intrigued scholars as far back as Aristotle. Numerous theories have tried to explain the origins of the trait, but most have concentrated on its role in human and primate biology. Now scientists at Yale and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital have provided fresh insights on the subject by examining the evolving trait across different species. "Prior studies have tended to focus on evidence from human biology and the modification of a trait rather than its evolutionary origin," said Gunter Wagner, the Alison Richard Professor...

Do I think I'm sexy?  If we are in a relationship we are more likely to be attracted to faces resembling our own, but for single people, opposites attract. Relationship status affects who and what we find attractive. Relationship status affects who and what we find attractive, found a study published in Frontiers in Psychology. Dr Jitka Lindová of Charles University in the Czech Republic and her team showed a series of photographs of faces to university students and asked them to rate their attractiveness. The photographs were digitally manipulated so that the resemblance to the student was modified. Images were of an individual of the opposite sex, whose face had been manipulated to look either more or less similar to the student. They were also presented with images of a same-sex individual manipulated in the same way. "We found that single participants, those not in relationships, rate dissimilar faces as more attractive and sexy than self-resembling faces;...

Chivalry is not dead when it comes to morality We're more likely to protect women than we are men We're more likely to sacrifice a man than a woman when it comes to both saving the lives of others and in pursuing our self-interests, a team of psychology researchers has found.  "Our study indicates that we think women's welfare should be preserved over men's," observes Oriel FeldmanHall, a post-doctoral researcher at New York University and the study's lead author. The research, conducted at Cambridge University's Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and Columbia University, appears in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. In one experiment, study subjects read one of three versions of a "Trolley Dilemma" -- a commonly used technique in psychology studies and akin to the "Lifeboat Question" (i.e., if you could save only three of five passengers in a lifeboat, whom would y...

How common is sexting? Over 80 percent  of survey respondents report  sexting within past year "Sexting associated with greater sexual satisfaction." The practice of sexting may be more common than generally thought among adults. More than eight out of 10 people surveyed online admitted to sexting in the prior year, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's 123rd Annual Convention. "Given the possible implications, both positive and negative, for sexual health, it is important to continue investigating the role sexting plays in current romantic and sexual relationships," said Emily Stasko, MS, MPH, of Drexel University, who presented the research. Stasko and her co-author, Pamela Geller, PhD, associate professor of psychology, ob/gyn and public health at Drexel University, surveyed 870 participants from the United States age 18 to 82 to assess sexting behaviors, sexting motives, and relationship and sexual satis...

Credit: © 135pixels / Fotolia " Put simply, women are evolved to invest far more in a  relationship than a man," researchers say.  "Women  experience more emotional pain following a breakup, but they also more fully recover ." I've long felt that in most ways, women are stronger and more resilient than men.  As I read more research, conclusions from a number of studies across the board back this feeling up.  For example, large corporations with women on the board of directors perform better, make higher profits and are less likely to go into bankruptcy.  Other research shows women make more responsible leaders, tuned in more closely to those they lead. They tend to be better managers.  The list goes on. Won't anyone say anything good about men?  Well, we're bigger.  And usually stronger.  And, uh. . . I'll work on this list during the day, see if I can think of anything else. Here's the report with a link to the full r...