Will “Love Will Keep Us Together” or is it true that “Love Is a Battlefield”? Whereas the topic of romance has provided limitless inspiration for artists, writers and musicians, scientists are just as fascinated by affairs of the heart, though they seldom sing about it. Cupid’s unpredictable arrow explains little, so it can be more [...]

In 1984, Fred Waitzkin published Searching for Bobby Fischer, the story of three years in the lives of Fred and his chess prodigy son, Josh Waitzkin. The book became an internationally acclaimed bestseller. Five years later, Paramount released the movie version of Searching for Bobby Fischer, which has become a cult classic. Waitzkin also wrote Mortal Games (1993), [...]

Author’s Note: The following was originally posted at The Psychologist Web site as part of their "Sin Week." Once you’ve read my confession on the sin of lust, be sure to check out my colleagues’ shameful confessions about their own gluttony, sloth, pride, wrath, envy and greed at the BPS Research Digest. I have been [...]

My mother used to say, “there’s somebody out there for everybody.” It sounds sweet, I know, but when you realize she would say this only in jaw-dropping astonishment at seeing a loving couple out in public in which both partners were, shall we say, aesthetically shortchanged in some eye-catching way, my dearly departed mother somehow [...]

Who says love hurts? New research shows that strong romantic feelings actually ease physical pain via the same neural pathways as powerful drugs. By simply gazing at a picture of their beloved, undergraduates in a recent study were able to substantially reduce their experience of pain. The effect occurs thanks to a boost in the [...]

A friend once told me how, as a child visiting a zoo, his eyes focused  on one of the many monkeys in an enclosed exhibit. The monkey, in turn, began looking back. They remained locked in this visual embrace, until my friend turned away—to be startled when the monkey came flying at him right into [...]

Imagine that you’re an infant monkey, and you’ve just been thrown into a cage after several hours in isolation. You’ve been deprived of food, so you’re starving. Facing you are two adult-looking (fake) monkeys, designed to look like each one could potentially be your mother. On the left is a “wire mother,” equipped with a [...]

People V. The State of Illusion, a new docudrama from Samuel Goldwyn Films, is a mixture of fiction and brain science that, despite these awkward bedfellows, was compelling enough to keep me up late on a Friday night. Although most of the well-worn findings parroted by the movie’s parade of experts were not new to [...]

My latest piece for BBC Future is now up, and it focuses on how the things we may think of as odd, gross, or strange when it comes to human sexual practices are perhaps entirely normal for other species. Romantic relationships are complicated, and so is sex. Relationships can be fraught with the potential for [...]

Here are my Research Blogging Editor’s Selections for this week. How about some Valentine’s Day science on this Valentine’s Day? First, from Melanie Tannenbaum at PsySociety: are love and hate really all that different? Psych Your Mind hosts guest blogger Maya Kuehn who has all the research on speed dating in one handy blog post. [...]

“Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with abandon or not at all” –Harriet van Horne Science, too, I think.

Love is maddening and inconvenient and exhilarating and wonderful. We often feel overwhelmed by it, heart pounding, “head over heels,” “crazy in love.” But how much is too much? And what’s the difference between feelings of normal love and desire, and love addiction? Where, exactly, is the line? For years I’ve known a woman we’ll [...]