By Steve Ayan Over the past 50 years Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel has shaped our understanding of the basic mechanisms of memory through his studies of the primitive sea slug Aplysia [see “Eric Kandel: From Mind to Brain and Back Again,” by David Dobbs, Scientific American Mind; October/November 2007]. First a student of history and literature and later a psychiatrist, the Vienna-born Columbia University professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator has emerged as one of the most prominent brain researchers of the century. Scientific American Mind: Do you see the humanities and natural sciences as separate realms, or can they be unified? Eric Kandel: I think they can—and the biology of the mind is one of ­several possible bridges between them. But unfortunately, today people from different academic backgrounds do not meet and talk to each other so much. This was once quite different. For example, in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, uncovering the unconscious was a project shared by scientists, artists and writers alike. People such as [writer and doctor] Arthur Schnitzler, [painters] Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, and [artist, poet and playwright] Oskar Kokoschka exchanged their ideas with scientists and other intellectuals and scientists in literary circles. Mind: Do you regard Freud as a ­scientist? Kandel: His aim was clearly scientific, but his methods weren’t. Until 1894 Freud tried to develop a neurobiological view of the mental apparatus. But because of the limited knowledge of his time, he finally gave up on that idea. Although Freud kept on working in a fairly systematic way, his ideas lacked an empirical foundation. But to my mind, the problems with psychoanalysis arose with those who came later. Freud’s followers should have tried to verify at least some of Freud’s postulates using empirical methods. Instead they treated him as if he were a guru. Nevertheless, we have profited from Freudian ideas. For example, he bridged the gap between mental disease and mental health, seeing the same unconscious mechanisms at work in both. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 12112 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By STEPHANIE SAUL The drug maker Pfizer earlier this decade manipulated the publication of scientific studies to bolster the use of its epilepsy drug Neurontin for other disorders, while suppressing research that did not support those uses, according to experts who reviewed thousands of company documents for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the company. Pfizer’s tactics included delaying the publication of studies that had found no evidence the drug worked for some other disorders, “spinning” negative data to place it in a more positive light, and bundling negative findings with positive studies to neutralize the results, according to written reports by the experts, who analyzed the documents at the request of the plaintiffs’ lawyers. One of the experts who reviewed the documents, Dr. Kay Dickersin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, concluded that the Pfizer documents spell out “a publication strategy meant to convince physicians of Neurontin’s effectiveness and misrepresent or suppress negative findings.” Pfizer issued a statement Tuesday denying that it had manipulated Neurontin data, saying “study results are reported by Pfizer in an objective, accurate, balanced and complete manner, with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the study, and are reported regardless of the outcome of the study or the country in which the study was conducted.” Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 12111 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Larry Greenemeier Over the past three decades, scientists have looked to molecular biology and genetics to shed light on the complex interactions between the eyes and brain that give humans the ability to see and make sense of our surroundings. According to Johns Hopkins University researchers, genes, proteins and photoreceptors in the eyes hold the key to new ways of preventing and treating of potentially blinding diseases such as diabetic retinopathy (damage to the blood vessels in the retina—the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye) and age-related macular degeneration (progressive damage to the central and most vital area of the retina, resulting in gradual loss of vision). The pair—neuroscientist King-Wai Yau and microbiologist Jeremy Nathans—were recently awarded a $1.36-million (1-million-euro) prize by Portugal's philanthropic Champalimaud Foundation to continue their research in this field. "For a long time, it wasn't clear the role that proteins played in the eye," says Yau, 59. The retina's receptors absorb light and trigger an electric signal that goes through the retina and on to the brain, providing it with the information needed for us to see images. Yau and his team are trying to determine the steps that take place between the absorption of light and the creation of that electric signal and how mutated or defective proteins may interfere with that process. Yau also studies hereditary blinding diseases that affect the eye's rod and cone photoreceptor cells: specifically, why some blind people who do not have functioning rods and cones can still sense light and remain synchronized to day–night cycles. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 12110 - Posted: 06.24.2010

SOME people get their kicks from drugs and alcohol. Male birds might get equally high while wooing a mate, a euphoria they don't feel when singing solo. Neal Hessler and Ya-Chun Huang of the Riken Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan, found that when a male zebra finch sang directly to a potential mate, neurons were activated in a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area, or VTA. Neurons in the equivalent human brain region are activated when people take drugs such as cocaine, which triggers the release of dopamine, the brain's "reward" chemical. In the finch's brain, the release of dopamine stimulated a nearby region that coordinates singing and learning in a positive feedback loop (PLoS ONE, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003281). In other words, singing triggered a feeling of reward, which made the finches sing more. "It's the clearest evidence so far that singing to a female is rewarding for male birds," says Hessler. This isn't surprising, he adds, since courtship is vital to reproduction in birds. The study suggests that male singing triggers a long-term change in neural communication in the VTA, which could perhaps be associated with feeling good, says Erich Jarvis, a bird neurologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 12109 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rachel Zelkowitz Female animals produce a variety of cues to let males know they're fertile and looking to mate. For example, research on humans has shown that women's faces and scents become even more attractive to men as levels of a chemical called luteinizing hormone rise in women, and their ovarian follicles prepare to release an egg. Female lap dancers even appear to earn higher tips when ovulating (ScienceNOW, 5 October). In certain animals, such as cows and elephants, the females moo, bellow, and grunt more during ovulation. But no one had looked for a link between ovulation and women's voices. Two researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, decided to examine the question by comparing voice recordings of women at different stages of the menstrual cycle. They enlisted 69 women between the ages of 18 and 39 who were not on birth control, and they used urine tests to analyze the woman's level of luteinizing hormone. The volunteers were recorded saying vowel sounds "eh-ee-ii-o-oo" and a sentence, "Hi, I am a student at UCLA" at the peak of ovulation and at the end of the reproductive cycle, just before the women began menstruating. The researchers then analyzed the two samples for differences in traits such as pitch, speech rate, and scratchiness, or sound quality. On average, the women's voices were about 5 hz higher in pitch at the peak of ovulation than before menstruation. That's a small difference, so the researchers also played the recordings to a group of 15 men and women to see if humans could detect the difference. The listeners could distinguish the higher one 55% of the time, slightly better than chance, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biology Letters. © 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Language
Link ID: 12108 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By TARA PARKER-POPE Sleeping in a room with a fan lowers a baby’s risk of sudden infant death syndrome by 72 percent, a new study has found. The finding, published Monday in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, is the latest evidence to suggest that a baby’s sleep environment is a critical factor in the risk of SIDS, which is diagnosed when an infant’s sudden death cannot be explained by other factors. The study was not designed to identify why fans make a difference, but researchers said they thought that by circulating air, fans lowered the risk of “rebreathing” exhaled carbon dioxide. That risk has been suggested as a reason the rate of SIDS is higher when children sleep on their stomach, in a soft bed or without a pacifier. Since 1992 the rate of SIDS deaths has dropped by more than half, to about one death per 2,000 live births from 2.4 per 1,000. The decline is linked to a national “Back to Sleep” campaign that promotes putting babies on their back instead of their stomach, which has been shown to lower the risk of sudden death. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends that parents avoid soft bedding, allow babies to use a pacifier and avoid overheating a baby’s room. Despite the gains, SIDS continues to be the leading cause of death in babies under the age of 1, and researchers are looking for more measures to lower the risk. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 12107 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Andy Coghlan Brain scans show that coma patients most aware of their environment react to pain the same as healthy people. Researchers who did the scans in Belgium say it justifies giving pain relief to all patients in this "minimally conscious state" (MCS). "These findings might be objective evidence of a potential pain perception capacity in patients with MCS, which supports the idea that these patients need painkilling treatment," write Steven Laureys and his colleagues at the Coma Science Group of the Cyclotron Research Centre at the University of Liege in The Lancet Neurology. But they found much less evidence that "brain-dead" coma patients in a so called persistent vegetative state (PVS) react to pain. Laureys and his colleagues discovered after taking brain scans of patients and healthy volunteers as they received mild electric shocks. They performed the procedure on five MCS patients, 15 healthy controls and 15 "brain-dead" patients. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Attention
Link ID: 12106 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Christopher Bergendorff Hot and delicious… chili peppers may scorch your tongue, but they’re hard to resist. But why are chilies hot in the first place? University of Washington biologist Josh Tewksbury says chili plants get hotter and hotter in response to invaders. Tewksbury says they do it "to defend themselves from, essentially, unwanted consumption, things they don’t want to eat them." Researchers have known for some time how chilies create the sensation of heat in the mouths of mammals that eat them, including us humans. As Tewksbury explains, the heat is actually a trick the chili pepper plays on our brain, using a chemical called “capsaicin.” “We’re essentially being fooled by this chemical into thinking we’re actually being damaged, so our brain goes ‘Oh my gosh, I’m being hurt, I’m being hurt like I’m touching a hot stove, quickly, do something!’ and you get this fight or flight response. That “fight or flight response” is basically a rush of endorphins flooding our bloodstream, which effectively kicks our body chemistry into high gear, preparing us for danger. It also creates the so-called “runner’s high” that athletes experience after strenuous exercise. This natural boost of energy is part of what attracts people who just can’t get enough of chili peppers, a food obsession which has inspired whole festivals devoted to this spicy plant. ©2008 ScienCentral

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 12105 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Amanda J. Barnier, Rochelle E. Cox and Greg Savage Hypnosis has long been considered a valuable technique for recreating and then studying puzzling psychological phenomena. A classic example of this approach uses a technique known as posthypnotic amnesia (PHA) to model memory disorders such as functional amnesia, which involves a sudden memory loss typically due to some sort of psychological trauma (rather than to brain damage or disease). Hypnotists produce PHA by suggesting to a hypnotized person that after hypnosis he will forget particular things until he receives a “cancellation,” such as “Now you can remember everything.” PHA typically only happens when it is specifically suggested and it is much more likely to occur in those with high levels of hypnotic ability, or “high hypnotizable” people. Now a new study shows that this hypnotic state actually influences brain activity associated with memory. High hypnotizable people with PHA typically show impaired explicit memory, or difficulty consciously recalling events or material targeted by the suggestion, and a dissociation between implicit and explicit memory, so that even though they can’t recall the forgotten information it continues to influence their behavior, thoughts and actions. The forgetting is reversible—when the suggestion is cancelled, their memories come flooding back. These last two features—the dissociation and reversibility—confirm that PHA is not the result of poor encoding of the memories or of normal forgetting, because the memories return as soon as PHA is cancelled. Rather, PHA reflects a temporary inability to retrieve information that is safely stored in memory. That makes it a useful tool for research. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Attention
Link ID: 12104 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Heidi Ledford A blood test that uses next-generation sequencing technology could one day replace more invasive methods as a prenatal test for Down's syndrome and other chromosomal disorders, researchers say. The test has only been tried in a small number of patients, and is years away from daily use in the clinic. But it is one of the first examples of using the recently developed methods for clinical diagnosis. "I suspect there will be many, many more in years to come," says bioengineer Stephen Quake of Stanford University in California, who led the study. The test relies on finding tiny amounts of fetal DNA that circulate through a mother's blood. Researchers have been avidly pursuing such methods because they could replace invasive procedures such as amniocentesis — in which a needle is inserted into the womb to sample the amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus — or sampling the chorionic villus, a part of the placenta, as both procedures carry the risk of miscarriage. Circulating fetal DNA is sometimes used to determine the sex of the fetus and to test for certain sex-linked genetic diseases. But developing a test that could look for extra copies of chromosomes, as is the case in Down's syndrome, has proved more challenging. Fetal DNA accounts for only a small proportion of the 'naked' DNA — that not contained within a cell — in the mother's blood. Most lab techniques are not sensitive enough to detect changes in circulating fetal DNA because the signal is drowned out by the mother's DNA. © 2008 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12103 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Bryan Smith The words on the pink post-it note, thumbtacked to a wall in his home, can't be any clearer: "This house, in Oak Park, Illinois, is where Bob and Donna live." But Bob Berry shakes his head. No. I live in Wichita Falls... don't I? Why, I have an exam tomorrow at my high school. I've talked to my father about it... or have I? Bob wonders. Lately, he can't be sure of anything. Except the nice woman. The one who always seems to be around, the one with the kind face who now takes his hand. Something about her seems familiar. But what? "No Bob, you already finished school. Don't you remember?" the woman says. "Did I?" "Yes. You were a professor at one of the best colleges in the country — Northwestern University — a Ph.D., a neuroanatomist." "But my father..." The woman, Donna Kersey, squeezes his hand. "Your father died, Bob, remember?" He stares at her blankly. "He did? I just talked to him." She hates having to tell him — again — but what can she do? Ever since a near-fatal cardiac arrest robbed Bob's brain of precious oxygen for close to 5 minutes, his memory has been like a blackboard swiped clean every few moments — erased. Pieces of information — the time, what day it is, where he lives — dissolve like vapor trails.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 12102 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG The public-health crusade of the moment is a no-holds-barred war on obesity. Those waging it don’t have time for subtlety. When Senator Christopher Dodd introduced the Obesity Prevention Act of 2008 this summer, he called obesity “a medical emergency of hurricanelike proportions” that is wreaking havoc “on our families, on our society and on our health care system.” But some activists and academics, part of a growing social movement known as fat acceptance, suggest that we rethink this war — as well as our definition of health itself. Fat-acceptance activists insist you can’t assume someone is unhealthy just because he’s fat, any more than you can assume someone is healthy just because he’s slim. (They deliberately use the word “fat” as a way to reclaim it, much the way some gay rights activists use the word “queer.”) Rather, they say, we should focus on health measurements that are more meaningful than numbers on a scale. This viewpoint received a boost in August when The Archives of Internal Medicine reported that fully half of overweight adults and one-third of the obese had normal blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar — indicating a normal risk for heart disease and diabetes, conditions supposedly caused by being fat. This is a core argument of fat acceptance: that it’s possible to be healthy no matter how fat you are and that weight loss as a goal is futile, unnecessary and counterproductive — and that fatness is nobody’s business but your own. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 12101 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Why do we find it funny when some­one falls down? —William B. Keith, Houston William F. Fry, a psychiatrist and laughter researcher at Stanford University, explains: Every human develops a sense of humor, and everyone’s taste is slightly different. But certain fundamental aspects of humor help explain why a misstep may elicit laughter. The first requirement is the “play frame,” which puts a real-life event in a nonserious context and allows for an atypical psychological reaction. Play frames explain why most people will not find it comical if someone falls from a 10-story building and dies: in this instance, the falling person’s distress hinders the establishment of the nonserious context. But if a woman casually walking down the street trips and flails hopelessly as she stumbles to the ground, the play frame may be established, and an observer may find the event amusing. Another crucial characteristic is incongruity, which can be seen in the improbable or inconsistent relation between the “punch line” and the “body” of a joke or experience. Falls are incongruent in the normal course of life in that they are unexpected. So despite our innate empathetic reaction—you poor fellow!—our incongruity instinct may be more powerful. Provided that the fall event establishes a play frame, mirth will likely ensue. © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12100 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Devin Powell As you read this sentence, your mind hones in on each word and blots out the rest of the page. This roving spot of attention tames the flood of visual information that hundreds of thousand of nerves attached to the back of your eye's retina stream into the brain. So far, most scientists held that the brain's outermost layer and main site of consciousness, the cortex, is responsible for housing the attention steering mechanisms that sort out all this sensory input. But back in 1984, the co-discoverer of DNA Francis Crick suggested that a simpler structure called the thalamus may also play a part in this process. Once thought to be only a highway that connects the eyes to the cortex, it could contain a mental searchlight that filters what we pay attention to, Crick proposed. To test this theory, Kerry McAlonan and colleagues at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, trained three macaque monkeys to pay attention to rectangular spots of light, each about the size of a thumb held up at arm's length. Unconscious control Their results show a quick surge of activity in the part of the thalamus that relays information to the cortex and, a split second later, a drop in activity in the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a satellite structure known to turn off this superhighway of sensory information during sleep. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Vision; Sleep
Link ID: 12099 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Colin Barras A microscope small enough to be mounted to the head of a freely moving mouse makes it possible to watch brain cell activity and whole animal behaviour simultaneously in mice. The device offers researchers a new way to study of human diseases using transgenic mice. Since researchers created the first transgenic mice in the 1980s, the mouse has become the lab animal of choice for medical research. There are now mouse "models" for a wide range of human genetic disorders, from Parkinson's to asthma. But correlating the activity inside cells with the behaviour of an animal as a whole is still a challenge, says Mark Schnitzer at Stanford University. Cell spotter "A lot of work has been done using brain slices, or anaesthetised animals – even using animals that are awake but restrained," he says. But so far it has been impossible to image cellular-level activity in a freely moving mouse. Schnitzer's team has now made it possible. They designed a tiny microscope weighing just 1.1 grams that can be worn by a mouse without significantly impairing its movement. The device has already been used to study the circulation of blood through the one-cell-wide capillaries in the brain of active mice. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 12098 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The discovery of another way in which the body appears to control how much it eats could shed fresh light on obesity. US researchers said poor diets may trigger a signalling system which prompts the body to consume even more. When the signals - involving a protein linked to inflammation - were blocked in mice, they maintained normal weight. A UK expert warned that the finding, in the journal Cell, may not lead to an effective anti-obesity drug because it could interfere with the immune system. The complexity of the controls governing the human metabolism, appetite and the laying down of fat has become clear over recent years. Despite some promising experiments in animals, none has yet produced a breakthrough in the battle against obesity. The latest "pathway" under investigation, by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is normally associated with the immune system, and inflammation, one of the body's defence systems. The link to obesity was made when scientists investigated "metabolic inflammation", a chronic, low-level condition often seen in obesity-related diseases. In mice, a protein connected to inflammatory reactions appeared to be switched on when the animals were given a high fat, high sugar diet. Not only this, but once the protein was switched on, the mice started eating more, suggesting that it was part of a pathway involving the regulation of food intake. Closer examination of the a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which is known to be involved in energy regulation, revealed the protein present there too. In mice genetically altered to block the pathway, even with a high fat diet available, they were able to maintain a healthy weight. (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 12097 - Posted: 10.04.2008

By Greg Miller With the meltdown of the global economy, many people think that their financial future is beyond their control. In such uncertain times, it's probably a good idea to take a deep breath before making any big decisions, because, according to a new study, the mind can play tricks on people when they think they've lost control of a situation. When life gets chaotic, it's natural to try to figure out what's going on. But sometimes, the desire for an explanation may lead us to perceive patterns that don't exist, says Jennifer Whitson, a management scholar at the University of Texas, Austin. A study conducted in the 1970s, for example, found a correlation between bad stock market performance and an increase in the amount of space newspapers devoted to horoscopes and articles about astrology. Failing to find an explanation for their falling fortunes in the economic data, people apparently started looking to the stars. Another study found that parachute jumpers are more likely to see a nonexistent figure in a picture of random dots and squiggles just before they jump. Intrigued by such findings, Whitson teamed up with Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. In one experiment, the researchers asked 41 undergraduates to recall a situation in which they'd lacked control (such as being a passenger in a car accident) and another group to recall a situation in which they'd had full control (such as going into an exam well-prepared). Then the subjects read passages describing an event preceded by an action that may or may not have influenced the event. One passage asked them to imagine that they were successful marketers whose ideas were rejected after they failed to perform their customary ritual of stomping the ground three times before the meeting. The subjects who previously recalled an in-control experience were more likely to write this off as mere coincidence than were those who'd recalled being out of control, Whitson and Galinsky report in tomorrow's issue of Science. © 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 12096 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Matt Kaplan Great artists are said to pour all their energies onto the canvas, leaving them exhausted after a flurry of creativity. Now, researchers have found that female birds make a similar sacrifice when colouring their eggs, creating vivid hues at the expense of their health. The blue in many birds' eggs comes from the compound biliverdin, a breakdown product of the heme unit in haemoglobin, which circulates freely in the blood. But biliverdin is not just a pigment, it is also an antioxidant used by the body to prevent cellular damage. Previous research has proven that when females lay vibrant blue eggs, their partners are more likely to stick around and help rear the young1. So researchers speculated that because the blue comes from an antioxidant, it is a signal to males of the female's health status. Some scientists have argued that the female is making a dangerous trade-off, giving up resources needed to sustain her health to convince her partner that her offspring are worth looking after. Determined to find out whether females were in fact sacrificing their health to lay blue eggs, Judith Morales at the University of Vigo in Spain and her colleagues monitored 100 boxes near the village of Lozoya in central Spain, where pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) commonly nest. The team tracked the progress of 48 females from when they started nesting. © 2008 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 12095 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Bruce Bower A gene variant involved in brain development may contribute to reading problems, including dyslexia. Unlike speaking, reading is a thoroughly unnatural act. That doesn’t mean that biology has no role in literacy. A gene involved in early brain development influences a range of reading problems, including dyslexia, a new study published online October 1 in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests. British children ages 7 to 9 who inherited a particular genetic sequence on chromosome 6 tended to perform poorly on tests of reading and spelling abilities, whether or not they had already been classified as dyslexic, say geneticist Silvia Paracchini of the University of Oxford in England and her colleagues. On average, carriers of the key genetic sequence scored as well on IQ tests as other kids did. In an earlier report, the scientists found that the DNA sequence spans part of a gene called KIAA0319 and is linked to dyslexia in children in England and the United States. Paracchini’s group has also shown that the chromosome 6 sequence often accompanies a reduced ability of the KIAA0319 gene to direct the prenatal migration of brain cells to appropriate destinations. Decreased protein production by KIAA0319 prompts subtle brain changes, beginning before birth, that contribute to reading problems, including dyslexia, the researchers propose. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2008

Keyword: Dyslexia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12094 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ewen Callaway Lonely men ought to flaunt their copies of New Scientist. Women looking for both one-night stands and long-term relationships go for geniuses over dumb jocks, according to a new study of hundreds of university students. "Women want the best of both worlds. Not only a physically attractive man, but somebody in the long term who can provide for them," says Mark Prokosch, an evolutionary psychologist at Elon University in North Carolina, who led the study. To many women, a smart man will appeal because he is likely to be clever enough to keep his family afloat. But he may also pass on "good" genes to his children, say Prokosch and his colleagues at the University of California, Davis. Rather than ask women to rate qualities they seek in men, as other studies had done, Prokosch's team asked 15 college men to perform a series of tasks on camera. The volunteers read news reports, explained why they would be a good date, and what would be the ramifications of the discovery of life on Mars. They also threw and caught a Frisbee to parade their physical appeal. Each potential suitor also took a quantitative test of verbal intelligence. More than 200 women watched a series of these videos before rating each man's intelligence, attractiveness, creativity and appeal for a short-term or long-term relationship. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Intelligence
Link ID: 12093 - Posted: 06.24.2010