By BENEDICT CAREY People with severe schizophrenia who have been isolated, withdrawn and considered beyond help can learn to become more active, social and employable by engaging in a type of talk therapy that was invented to treat depression, scientists reported on Monday. These new findings suggest that such patients have far more capability to improve their lives than was previously assumed and, if replicated, could change the way that doctors treat the one million patients for whom the disorder is profoundly limiting. The therapy — a variant of cognitive behavior therapy, which focuses on defusing self-defeating assumptions — increased motivation and reduced symptoms. In previous studies, researchers have used cognitive techniques to help people with schizophrenia manage their hallucinations and sharpen their attention and memory. The new study is the first to rigorously test using the therapy to combat so-called negative symptoms — the listlessness, exhaustion and emotional flatness that trap many people in solitary lives, playing out their days smoking in front of the TV or holed up in their homes. Dr. Bob Buchanan, a psychiatrist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, said the results looked impressive. “This is a group of patients who have tried just about everything — drug treatments as well as psychosocial ones — and many clinicians and systems of care have essentially given up on them. If there’s an intervention out there that can make a difference, I think that’s an incredibly important development.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 15873 - Posted: 10.04.2011

By SAM BORDEN WASHINGTON — The N.F.L’s first attempt at a long-range study on the effects of concussions was riddled with problems from the manner in which data was collected to conflicts of interest for those overseeing it. After criticism from outside experts and even members of Congress, the study was shut down by the league in late 2009. Nearly two years later, however, the N.F.L.’s committee on concussion research is planning a considerably broader study — an effort that could begin gathering data as soon as next season, according to one of the doctors involved. The doctor, Mitchel S. Berger, the chairman of the neurological surgery department at the University of California San Francisco, said Monday that he and the N.F.L.’s subcommittee on former players and long-term effects of brain and spine injury had been holding conference calls regarding the study every two weeks with representatives from the players’ union. He added that he hoped to make a final presentation to the union and Commissioner Roger Goodell “in the near future.” Berger said he was aware of the issues surrounding the previous study, and said the latest model was completely different. “There was no science in that,” Berger said in reference to the study coordinated by Dr. Ira Casson, who was also the league’s primary voice in discrediting outside research on concussions. Asked if he might use any of the data from Casson’s work, Berger shook his head. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 15872 - Posted: 10.04.2011

By Katherine Harmon In the first week of the trial of Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's physician, Los Angeles jurors heard audio recordings of the late pop star's slurred speech, in addition to the litany of prescription drugs he had taken in the hours and weeks prior to his June 25, 2009, death. It will be up to them to decide if they agree with the Los Angeles County coroner's office, which labeled Jackson's death a homicide. According to the 2009 autopsy report (pdf), "the cause of death is acute propofol intoxication," which caused the singer to stop breathing. In addition to propofol (a hypnotic drug used for general anesthesia, sedation and in veterinary medicine) the examiner also found traces of lorazepam (a benzodiazepine drug used to treat anxiety and insomnia); midazolam (another benzodiazepine, indicated for insomnia and medical sedation); lidocaine (a local anesthetic often included with propofol to relieve injection pain); diazepam (a benzodiazepine to treat anxiety, insomnia and alcohol withdrawal); and nordiazepam (a benzodiazepine-derived sedative, often used to treat anxiety) in Jackson's bloodstream. To support the weighty pronouncement of homicide, the medical examiner concluded that: "circumstances indicate that propofol and the benzodiazepines were administered by another. The propofol was administered in a nonhospital setting without any appropriate medical indication. The standard of care for administering porpofol was not met." © 2011 Scientific American

Keyword: Sleep; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15871 - Posted: 10.04.2011

by Sara Reardon As the Thirty Years' War between Europe's ruling dynasties dragged on during the 17th century, soldiers suffered through the coldest few decades Europe had experienced for some time. Far to the east, armies from Manchuria (present day northern China) swept down from the snowy north and breeched the Great Wall of China. Not long after, a plague swept Europe. Why so much tumult? A controversial new study suggests that most of humankind's maladies—from wars to epidemics to economic downturns—can be traced to climate fluctuations. Advances in paleoclimatology have enabled researchers to look back further in time than they ever could before. One of these scientists, geographer David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, was particularly interested in how hot and cold spells affect human civilization. He and colleagues loaded a powerful statistical analysis tool with socioeconomic, ecological, demographic, and other data. They collected data on 14 variables, such as human height, the price of gold, tree ring width, and temperature from preindustrial Europe between the years 1500 and 1800. The team then performed a statistical analysis called a Granger causality analysis to establish whether cause-effect relationships existed between any of them. This type of powerful analysis allows researchers to look at a time series of data and form relationships in which one type of event consistently leads to another. Finally, the researchers divided the time period into four smaller slices, ranging from 40 to 150 years each, to ascertain whether major events during these eras are actually caused by temperature differences within a given period, not just correlated with it. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 15870 - Posted: 10.04.2011

By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature The secret to social dominance for bank voles appears to be the size of their genitals, according to scientists. The link was made by researchers from Europe who were studying the small brown mammals' reproductive behaviour. The study, in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, found dominant males had wider penis bones, also called baculum. Although not present in humans, these bones are found in many other species of mammal but their exact function has not been confirmed. A scan of the baculum bone (c) Jean-Francois Lemaitre The bank vole's penis bone is trident-shaped with a wide base The study was conducted by Dr Jean-Francois Lemaitre from the University of Liverpool with colleagues in France and Switzerland. Bank voles live for a maximum of 18 months and females give birth to four or five litters per year. "This species is particularly interesting for study... because females mate with several males during a single reproductive bout," explained Dr Lemaitre. Researchers suggest that this competition may have driven evolutionary adaptations in genital anatomy to improve males' chances of reproduction. To test their theory, the team collected wild bank voles in Cheshire and studied their lab-reared offspring to understand which were dominant and which were subordinate. BBC © 2011

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 15869 - Posted: 10.04.2011

By Eric Michael Johnson Charles Darwin had more in common with chimpanzees than even he realized. Before he was universally known for his theory of natural selection, the young naturalist made a decision that has long been hailed as the type of behavior that fundamentally separates humans from other apes. In 1858, before Darwin published On the Origin of Species, his friend Alfred Russel Wallace​ mailed Darwin his own theory of evolution that closely matched what Darwin had secretly been working on for more than two decades. Instead of racing to publish and ignoring Wallace’s work, Darwin included Wallace’s outline alongside his own abstract so that the two could be presented jointly before the Linnean Society the following month. “I would far rather burn my whole book than that [Wallace] or any man should think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit,” Darwin wrote. This kind of prosocial behavior, a form of altruism that seeks to benefit others and promote cooperation, has now been found in chimps, the species that Darwin did more than any other human to connect us with. (This month's Science Agenda, about medical testing in chimps, notes other similarities that have been documented in chimps and humans.) In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, primatologist Frans de Waal and his colleagues at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University presented chimps with a simplified version of the choice that Darwin faced. Pairs of chimps were brought into a testing room where they were separated only by a wire mesh. On one side was a bucket containing 30 tokens that the chimpanzee could give to an experimenter for a food reward. Half of the tokens were of one color that resulted in only the chimpanzee that gave the token receiving a reward. The other tokens were of a different color that resulted in both chimpanzees receiving a food reward. If chimpanzees were motivated only by selfish interests, they would be expected to choose a reward only for themselves (or it should be 50–50 if they were choosing randomly). But individuals were significantly more likely to choose the prosocial outcome compared with the no-partner control. © 2011 Scientific American,

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 15868 - Posted: 10.04.2011

By JAMES WARREN It’s a function of fiscal dehydration and desperation that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is drooling over the prospect of casino revenues. The Missile thus might find that a Northwestern University professor is underscoring the obvious in a study, “A Mouth-Watering Prospect: Salivation to Material Reward,” because it links a vivid physiological response to the mere thought of money. This study is relevant in a week in which the Missile, aldermen and the city’s inspector general are entangled in budgetary skirmishing and reveries. It inspires my new Pavlov’s Law of Government Salivation, namely that the political class will drool at the thought of financial sources, even imaginary ones. In the Northwestern study, David Gal, who teaches marketing at the university’s Kellogg School of Management, sought to go beyond the well-documented reality of salivary secretions being tied to hunger and the craving for food. That’s why Mr. Gal beckoned a few hundred Northwestern students to test whether we also might salivate to distinctly material incentives, notably money and sports cars. The 169 men and women who participated in the first stage of the experiment were told that researchers were interested in responses to food stimuli and that participants would view images of different food items but also some nonfood items, in particular money and office supplies. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 15867 - Posted: 10.01.2011

Caitlin Stier, video intern Most people would agree that the static disc in this video is covered with a black-and-white pattern. But once the disc starts spinning, many viewers see colourful swirls appear. This classic illusion, invented by English toymaker Charles Benham in 1895, is still puzzling scientists today. The colours perceived seem to vary from person to person, as well as with lighting and rotation speed, and there is still no clear explanation for why this happens. However, a recent functional MRI study by Hiroki Tanabe and his team from the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan is giving some insight. Brain scans of volunteers looking at Benham's disc showed activity in the same areas of the brain as people watching a spinning coloured disc. But viewers of the illusion had stronger connections between certain regions in the visual cortex, suggesting that a few different areas cooperate to produce the effect. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 15866 - Posted: 10.01.2011

by Andy Coghlan TWIN studies have shown that people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have changes in gene activity caused by their environment. The finding provides the strongest evidence yet that such gene changes might cause the conditions. Jonathan Mill at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and colleagues scanned the genome of 22 pairs of identical twins - chosen because one twin in each pair was diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. As expected, the twins had identical DNA. However, they showed significant differences in chemical "epigenetic" markings - changes that do not alter the sequence of DNA but leave chemical marks on genes that dictate how active they are. These changes were on genes that have been linked with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Mill's team scanned for differences in the attachment of chemical methyl groups at 27,000 sites in the genome. Methylation normally switches genes off, and de-methylation turns them on. Regardless of which condition the twin had, the most significant differences, with variations of up to 20 per cent in the amount of methylation, were in the promoter "switch" for a gene called ST6GALNAC1, which has been linked with schizophrenia. Although the function of the gene isn't fully established, it is thought to add sugars to proteins, which could alter the speed or specificity of their usual function. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 15865 - Posted: 10.01.2011

by Andy Coghlan Video: Meek mouse yields in dominance duel Dominant mice can be humbled and wimps made mighty by altering the strength of electrical connections in their brain. The crucial connections dictating a mouse's place in the social hierarchy appear to sit in the part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), responsible for emotion and decision-making. To investigate the impact of the mPFC on social ranking, Hailan Hu of the Chinese Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai and her colleagues first worked out the social hierarchy of mice through challenges between pairs of the animals in transparent tubes. When the mice came face to face, the subordinate animal would retreat and back out of the tube. The team then injected a virus into some of the mice that inserts a gene called GluR4 into mPFC neurons. GluR4 amplifies transmission of electrical signals – a key step in strengthening connections. When the dominance tests were repeated, previously subordinate mice that had received the virus were propelled to the top of the social ladder. "These mice also tended to gain more food in competition with their cage-mates, mark more territories and sing more courtship songs than their subordinate counterparts," says Hu. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Aggression; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 15864 - Posted: 10.01.2011

by Chelsea Whyte A new strain of mice engineered to lack a gene with links to autism displays many of the hallmarks of the condition. It also responds to a drug in the same way as people with autism, which might open the way to new therapies for such people. It's not the first mouse strain to have symptoms of autism, and previous ones have already been useful models for studying the condition. Daniel Geschwind at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues tried a fresh approach, however. Rather than simply examining existing strains to identify mice with autistic-like behaviour, they engineered mice to lack a gene called Cntnap2, which had already been implicated in autism. Cntnap2 is the largest gene on the genome, clocking in at 2.5 million bases, and is responsible for regulating brain circuits involved in language and speech. Geschwind was initially sceptical that the modified mice would display the behaviour typical of autism in humans, because the neural pathways in the two species are thought to be fairly different. "One has to be cautious," he says. "What is an autistic mouse going to look like?" Surprisingly, he says, it turns out to be a lot like a human with autism. "Knockout" mice lacking the gene were less vocal than their genetically unaltered littermates, and less social as well. They also showed repetitive behaviour such as grooming which was "wild almost to the point of self-injury", says Geschwind. These three symptoms are the ones normally used to diagnose autism in humans. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Autism; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 15863 - Posted: 10.01.2011

By Cassie Rodenberg According to recent headlines, we might be poisoning ourselves and our kids with pain pills, yet we’re afraid to tell doctors we’re depressed. Anti-depressants are the second most prescribed kind of medication in the U.S., and an estimated one in 10 Americans reports suffering from depression. This class of drugs has become about as common as table salt in American households, yet enough stigma (and fear of side effects) still exists to make patients feel uncomfortable telling their doctors if they’re experiencing symptoms of depression. In a recent study, 23 percent of people polled said they kept their symptoms of depression a secret because they feared their doctors would prescribe anti-depressants. And in fact, disclosing depression might be more of a societal than personal problem, with anxieties that insurance premiums will rise or colleagues at work will find out.1 Is this such a thing to be ashamed of? Funny how chronic pain is acceptable, eliciting the most sympathetic of nods from acquaintances and colleagues alike, yet the equally chronic debilitation of depression is taboo. It makes me wonder: do we avoid treatment for chronic depression and instead overuse and abuse supposedly sensible, necessary pain pills to self medicate? Do we subconsciously favor physical over mental pain? An op-ed in the Archives of Internal Medicine (subscription required) noted that little research has been done on long-term effects of opioids (a common type of prescribed pain pill), including the drugs’ effects on patients with psychological disorders and depression. This is alarming when 30-50% of those taking opioids suffer from symptoms of depression and anxiety, and as seen above, many more are likely undiagnosed. © 2011 Scientific American,

Keyword: Depression; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 15862 - Posted: 10.01.2011

By Matt Blake Forty-five years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his hippie followers to "turn on, tune in and drop out", researchers have found that magic mushrooms do change a user's personality – for the better. The fungi have long been known for their psychedelic effects, but far from damaging the brain, the hallucinogenic drug they contain enhances feelings and aesthetic sensibilities, scientists say. The study, at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore, found that a single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, was enough to cause positive effects for up to a year. "Psilocybin can facilitate experiences that change how people perceive themselves and their environment," said Roland Griffiths, a study author and professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at Johns Hopkins. "That's unprecedented." Users who had a "mystical experience" while taking the drug showed increases in a personality trait dubbed "openness", one of the five major traits used in psychology to describe human personality. Openness is associated with imagination, artistic appreciation, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness. None of the other four traits – extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness – was altered. Under controlled scientific conditions, researchers gave 51 adults either psilocybin or a placebo in up to five eight-hour sessions. They were told to lie on a sofa with their eyes covered and listen to music while focusing on an "inner experience". ©independent.co.uk

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Emotions
Link ID: 15861 - Posted: 10.01.2011

Children and teens who go to bed late and wake up late are more likely to be overweight than their peers who go to bed early and rise early, Australian researchers suggest. For the study, 2,200 Australians aged nine to 16 kept track of their bedtimes, wake times as well as time spent watching TV, playing videogames or using computers. They also wore pedometers to record their physical activity levels, and weights were measured. When they went to sleep was key to the results. Those who went to bed late and got up late were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than those who went to bed early and got up early, even when they got the same amount of sleep, Carol Maher, a post-doctoral fellow with the University of South Australia, and her co-authors reported in Saturday's issue of the journal Sleep. The late-nighters were almost twice as likely to be physically inactive and nearly three times more likely to sit in front of screens for more than guidelines recommend, racking up nearly an hour more of these sedentary activities. "This study shows that the teenagers that have that pattern of late to bed, late to wake up don't have as good health outcomes," Maher told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.The time teens go to bed is linked to their risk of being overweight. The findings contradict opinions that it is normal for teenagers to get into a sleeping pattern of staying up late and sleeping in, or advisable to adjust school times to fit in with a teenager's sleep patterns, she said. © CBC 2011

Keyword: Sleep; Obesity
Link ID: 15860 - Posted: 10.01.2011

By Lonnae O’Neal Parker, That morning, I noticed first that I couldn’t spit. I was brushing my teeth, but I couldn’t close my lips around the toothbrush, and my mouth didn’t seem to work right. Weird, I thought, but I quickly put it out of my mind. I was on assignment for The Post and probably I was just tired from the overnight drive from Prince George’s County to Greensboro, N.C. Perhaps it was the two glasses of wine a couple of nights before. Maybe it was the flu. Whatever it was, I was sure I didn’t have time for it. I was traveling to Atlanta with two guys I was writing about, and as we grabbed breakfast before the second leg of our drive, my weird-face feeling intensified. Then my right eye began to ache, and a sudden fear iced my spine. I stepped outside the restaurant to stare at my reflection in the car window, and I couldn’t process what I was seeing. I couldn’t move the right side of my face, and my eye ached because I couldn’t close it. The parking lot started to swim, and I willed myself not to faint. “Something’s wrong with my face,” I told the guys haltingly. “I have to go to the emergency room when we get to Atlanta.” But they insisted on taking me immediately in Greensboro. I’m glad they did. “My face is paralyzed, and I can’t blink. I think I’m having a stroke,” I told the receptionist at the Moses Cone Urgent Care Center, though it all felt so surreal. I’m only 44, and I’m healthy! © 1996-2011 The Washington Post

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 15859 - Posted: 10.01.2011

By Leila Battison Science reporter Bats are able to locate their prey using echolocation produced by a special kind of "superfast" muscle, scientists have found. These specially adapted muscles can contract 100 times quicker than most of the muscles in human bodies. This is the first time such muscles have been seen in mammals, although they had previously been found in rattlesnakes, some fish and birds. The Danish findings are published in the journal Science. Bats use echolocation to navigate in total darkness, as well as to catch flying insects in mid air. In order to pinpoint the insects with enough accuracy and speed to catch them before they fly away, the bats need to make a lot of calls in rapid succession. As the bat approaches its prey target, the frequency of calls increases up to about 190 calls per second, creating what is known as the "terminal buzz". Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark, led by Prof Coen Elemans, designed tests to investigate just how fast the terminal buzz could be. They discovered that the maximum frequency of the buzz was not limited by the echo return time, but was controlled by the muscles in a bat's throat. BBC © 2011

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 15858 - Posted: 10.01.2011

Jonathan Weitzman As an identical twin, I have always been fascinated by what determines who we are. Nature's clones are never truly identical, so what explains the differences between my brother and myself? How much of our identity is inherited; how much acquired by interacting with the environment? The field of epigenetics, standing at the interface between our environment and our genes, is beginning to offer answers. Epigenetics explores how genetically identical entities, whether cells or whole organisms, display different characteristics, and how these are inherited. The past century witnessed amazing advances in our understanding of genetics, but secrets remain hidden within the genome. Epigenetics research is now blossoming, offering a potential panacea for these post-genome blues. Two timely books open up this emergent field: Epigenetics by Richard Francis and The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey offer very different takes. Francis's thoughtful and succinct book focuses on the narrative and the excitement of discovery, rather than on the nitty-gritty details at the molecular level. His personal tour includes anecdotes from his travels around the world and allusions to popular culture. Carey's book is more DNA-centric, focusing on epigenetic mechanisms and the chemistry of chromatin, which defines how DNA is packaged around proteins in the nucleus. Her book combines an easy style with a textbook's thoroughness. © 2011 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 15857 - Posted: 09.29.2011

by Sara Reardon Snuffling around in a Plexiglas box that it knows well, a black and white rat catches a whiff of chocolate cookies. It scampers toward them—but suddenly, it finds itself teleported into another, equally familiar box. One could hardly blame the poor rat for being confused and disoriented for at least a fraction of a second, and researchers have now figured out why: cells in the memory center of its brain compete over where it is for exactly one-eighth of a second. The "teleportation" effect in rats is similar to the momentary disorientation you feel when elevator doors open and you step out onto the wrong floor. It occurs because the place you expect to see and the place you actually do are "mutually exclusive," says Edvard Moser, a neuroscientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Normally, the brain orients itself gradually as you move. The hippocampus, the brain's memory center, contains neurons known as place cells, which record both your environment and your movement within it in order to form memories that ensure you always know where you are. To update the brain on your position, place cells fire in a rhythm called a theta oscillation, which repeats itself every 125 milliseconds and is especially prominent when you're moving. To teleport rats, Edvard Moser and his wife, neuroscientist May-Britt Moser, built two rat boxes connected by a tunnel. One box had a circle of white light-emitting diodes shining up through the clear floor, and the other had a row of green LEDs around the ceiling. The researchers let a rat run back and forth between the two boxes and forage for food until it became familiar with both. They also implanted an electrode array into the rat's hippocampus and recorded firing patterns from individual neurons while the rat was in each box. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 15856 - Posted: 09.29.2011

By Janet Raloff Not getting enough vitamin B12 may take a serious toll on the brain. Two new studies of the elderly link impairments of memory and reasoning with an indirect measure of vitamin B12 deficiency. Worse, brain scans reveal that those with signs of insufficient B12 are more likely to have shrinkage of brain tissue, vascular damage and patches of dead brain cells than are people with higher levels of the vitamin. A third, ongoing study is recording neural changes — a slowing in the electrical signals conveying visual information — among people with B12 deficiency. Conducted in seniors, mostly in their mid-70s to upper 80s (including a large group in Chicago), all three studies observed adverse changes even in people whose B12 levels in blood fall within the ostensibly normal, healthy range. While blood levels of B12 might have been normal, however, two biochemical markers of B12 deficiency often were not: Except in the visual study, brain problems largely correlated with rising blood concentrations of homocysteine and methylmalonic acid, or MMA, which accumulate in blood when cells of the body receive too little B12. “The message of this Chicago study is watch your B12. It’s important for the brain,” says David Smith of the University of Oxford in England, whose team has begun investigating whether vitamin supplementation can slow cognitive decline in the elderly. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Alzheimers; Attention
Link ID: 15855 - Posted: 09.29.2011

by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam With its expansive range and unprecedented potential for anonymity, 
the Internet gives voice to our deepest urges and most uninhibited thoughts. Inspired by the wealth of unfettered expression available online, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, who met as Ph.D. candidates at Boston University, began plumbing a few chosen search engines (including Dogpile and AOL) to create the world’s largest experiment in sexuality in 2009. Quietly tapping into a billion Web searches, they explored the private activities of more than 100 million men and women around the world. The result is the first large-scale scientific examination of human sexuality in more than half a century, since biologist Alfred Kinsey famously interviewed more than 18,000 middle-class Caucasians about their sexual behavior and published the Kinsey reports in 1948 and 1953. Building on the work of Kinsey, neuroscientists have long made the case that male and female sexuality exist on different planes. But like Kinsey himself, they have been hampered by the dubious reliability of self-reports of sexual behavior and preferences as well as by small sample sizes. That is where the Internet comes in. By accessing raw data from Web searches and employing the help of Alexa—a company that measures Web traffic and publishes a list of the million most popular sites in the world—Ogas and Gaddam shine a light on hidden desire, a quirky realm of lust, fetish, and kink that, like the far side of the moon, has barely been glimpsed. Here is a sampling of their fascinating results, selected from their book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts. Copyright © 2011, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 15854 - Posted: 09.29.2011