Last summer I was hiking in the tundra near Gray’s and Torrey’s Peaks when I came upon a moss that looked strange. It had little flattened discs that looked something like this: What were these things? Then I happened to pick up a book called “Gathering Moss“, and suddenly I knew what it was I [...]

A fern may seem a simple thing. It’s a leaf; it sprouts from the forest floor. But it’s much more than that. Ferns were one of the first plant forms to evolve, and they retain features that show it. For instance, unlike mosses and their wacky buddies the liverworts, ferns possess true stems (which usually [...]

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 [...]

A few weeks ago, Satoshi Kanazawa, a blogger at Psychology Today who was already notorious for his dubious claims about racial differences, especially with respect to intelligence, proclaimed on the basis of a bizarre data analysis that Black women are “objectively” the least attractive females of all the races. Objectively, mind you, which implies that [...]

It may seem to you that, much like their barnyard animal namesake, men’s reproductive organs the world over participate in a mindless synchrony of stiffened salutes to the rising sun. In fact, however, such "morning wood" is an autonomic leftover from a series of nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) episodes that occur like clockwork during the [...]

Dear readers: I have come upon a secret treasure, a heretofore-unknown bounty of facts only recently unearthed by a team of evolutionary psychologists. A vital forewarning, though: although the data and information I am about to share oozes with the promise of dramatically improving virtually every aspect of your wellbeing, it can also be abused [...]

There’s a strange whiff in the media air, a sort of polyamory chic in which liberally minded journalists, an aggregate mass of antireligious pundits, and even scientists themselves have begun encouraging readers and viewers to use evolutionary theory to revisit and revise their sexual attitudes and, more importantly, their behaviors in ways that fit their [...]

There must be something in the water here in Lanesboro, Minnesota, because last night I dreamt of an encounter with a very muscular African-American centaur, an orgiastic experience with – gasp – drunken members of the opposite sex and (as if that weren’t enough) then being asked by my hostess to wear a white wedding [...]

Like many people, I ask myself continuously about some of life’s biggest mysteries. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Why do we have those strangely sparse, wiry little hairs growing around our genitals—hair that is singularly different from all the other hair on our bodies? Fortunately, a group of leading-edge scientists [...]

Now that I’ve written at some length about the curious evolution of the male reproductive system in our species, I thought it only right to devote a column to the natural origins of a biological mechanism that doesn’t involve the Y chromosome. Well, at least it doesn’t have to. Needless to say, the subject of [...]

Earlier this year, I wrote a column about evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup’s “semen displacement hypothesis,” a convincing hypothesis presenting a very plausible, empirically supported account of the evolution of the peculiarly shaped human penis. In short, Gallup and his colleagues argued that our species’ distinctive phallus, with its bulbous glans and flared coronal ridge, was [...]

Readers of this blog are likely already aware of Naomi Wolf’s book Vagina: A New Biography. I’m late to the party, because it just seemed wrong to pile on a feminist more senior to me who, though misguided, is at least working towards equality for women. But the more I read, the harder it has [...]

There’s certainly been no shortage of news headlines proclaiming that we can now add former CIA director General David Petraeus to the list of powerful men who have been brought down by very well-publicized sex scandals. It’s particularly dismaying to see how many of these headlines are broadly asserting, as news outlet headlines often do [...]

June is Pride Month in the United States, and in communities across the country, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Americans are celebrating with carnivals, parades, and marches. Pride is a rebuke to the shame and marginalization many LGBT people face growing up, and a celebration of the freedoms we’ve won since the days when our [...]

Sex costs amazing amounts of time and energy. Just take birds of paradise touting their tails, stags jousting with their antlers or singles spending their weekends in loud and sweaty bars. Is sex really worth all the effort that we, sexual species, collectively put into it? Despite many teenage frustrations and MTV, most biologists think [...]

The most commonly acquired sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S., chlamydia and gonorrhea, are usually cleared out swiftly and easily with a dose of oral antibiotics. But one of these infections is growing bold and finding ways to evade treatment. More than 321,000 cases of gonorrhea are reported each year in the U.S. alone—and [...]

Two-part barbed penises, a physical struggle and 20 minutes of penetration. That’s how some sea slugs do it. But the real shocker is that, for one species at least, those in the female role seem to engage in these bizarre, violent sexual encounters more often than might be biologically necessary. Nothing about sea-slug sex sounds [...]

Condom use, earlier treatment and increased education have gone a long way to reducing HIV spread in the U.S. Nonetheless, some 4,000 inhabitants of New York City still became infected with HIV in 2009. Injection drug users make up a small portion of the new infections (just over 4 percent in NYC, and about 9 percent [...]

Moss, that cushy, moisture-loving ground cover, is more promiscuous than we thought. These plants might not have the sexy flowers of a peony, but according to new research, they do manage to attract small pollinators with a subtle sweet smell. Previously, scientists had presumed that these primitive plants needed a layer of water for their [...]

The promise of a nice dinner might not always win over a woman, but for some male fish, a tasty-looking lure seems to get the girl pretty reliably. The trick is to make sure the offering resembles the local cuisine and then they can reel in the ladies hook, line and sinker. Swordtail charachin (Corynopoma [...]

A graduate student of famed neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran has found a group of men and women who report that their sexual identity can switch involuntarily to that of the opposite sex and back again. The transgender metamorphosis, these people assert, can occur several times a day and at inopportune moments. It is also accompanied [...]

Fellas, want a better chance of passing along your genes? Try laying off the fried food. A more healthful diet will not only help you get fitter, but, new research indicates, it might also increase the odds that your sperm are in better shape, too. A whole host of factors might impair male fertility—including alcohol [...]

Sex might seem like a risky occupation for the more than 27 million Americans who have been diagnosed with heart disease. But that’s not necessarily so, says a new report. The risk varies greatly depending on the severity of a person’s condition—as well as how stressful (or, perhaps, exciting) the sex is. Cardiac patients whose [...]

The pop psychology section of Barnes & Noble is filled with self-help books that dutifully explain how the brain is the body’s primary erogenous zone. Now researchers have spliced together a series of fMRI images to make a movie that shows the extent to which that clichéd adage rings true. A video, shown on an [...]

As the seasons heat up annually, males and females start looking for mates, and two summers’ worth of steamy drama outside of a small European town have now been caught on tape. A big, strong male comes by to strut his stuff for a female, but she also seems interested in a smaller potential mate [...]

The octopus is a solitary creature. Most known species of octopus avoid the company their own kind. And you might, too, if you knew your conspecific were capable of cannibalism. So in public aquariums, these animals are usually kept in separate tanks to keep them safe (and to avoid any unsightly encounters in front of [...]

Of the hundreds of known octopus species, most are anti-social, practice safe sex (to avoid getting eaten by a mate) and lay just one clutch of eggs before dying. The poorly understood larger Pacific striped octopus, however, seems to break from these conventions: They are somewhat social, they mate face-to-face, and the females produce multiple [...]

Desire. When you have it, nobody questions it. When it is absent, it can be tricky to talk about. After all, the subject is delicate, and what is the point? You probably have little clue what is going on anyway. Luckily, scientists are looking out for you—because it is not even close to being just [...]

Conventional wisdom has it that the only thing that will unite races, religions and political factions will be the landing of a hostile Martian space ship. It’s a little hard to plan for the exact moment of the next Mars attack. So invoking global terror from extraterrestrials might not be such a great strategy for [...]

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 [...]

Mindshare LA Presents: “Your Primal Instincts” …on the West Side! I’ll be speaking at a special sciencey Valentine’s Day version of Mindshare this month in Santa Monica along with Christopher Ryan (of Sex at Dawn fame) and science journalist Sharon Brock. We’ll all be covering the science of love from our own perspectives, and my [...]

“The males often prefer eating to mating.” Apparently, giant panda dudes (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in captivity would rather sit around and munch on bamboo than get it on with the females. And this is a problem at the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Centre, where scientists are urging the pandas to breed, for conservation purposes. What’s [...]

Regular readers of this blog know that while I think studying animal cognition, behavior, and communication is (sometimes) fun and (always) interesting, the real importance – the why should I care about this – is because by understanding animals, we can attempt to learn more about ourselves. I’ve written about this before. Here are the [...]

I’m coming to the east coast in 3 weeks. I’m honored (and excited) to participate in the New York Academy of Sciences Science & the City event on Lust and Love in the Animal Kingdom! It will be a conversational panel discussion (not individual presentations) about the science sex and love. Science & the City, [...]

That word would be FEMINISM. (click on images to embiggen and read) Late night on Monday, January 14, the day before Dr. Martin Luther the-King Birthday I happened upon a Twitterbeef. I was a casual observer noting the typical side-eyes of Luvvie (I totes love her – in her totality. She’s funny, smart, innovative. ERRTHANG, [...]

Keri Hilson with Lil Wayne Lil Wayne’s monologue really says it all: mami i dig your persona right, you look baby mama type, i know that got you kinda hyped, my ice is albino white, i hope your vagina tight i go underwater and i hope your piranha bite hahaha Why does vagina muscle tone [...]

The Intersection of Culture and Science – Hip Hop, Feminism, Sex, & Sexual Selection: That’s essentially what my presentation (and my time interacting with students and faculty) at Denison University was about.  It was a blast and most exciting talk I have every given (outside of my dissertation defense).  Hip Hop and Science is a [...]

June 18-24, 2012 is Pollinator Week. Join me is raising awareness of the importance of pollinators our ecosystems.   How well do you know your bees? Take this quick and see: Bee Identification.    

Feminsiting Friday is a series of posts dissecting hip-hop and pop culture for its sexist influences and/or portrayals on women and girls. Offering insight as an evolutionary biologist, I promise to be analytical, scathing, and downright snarky.  I began the series at my previous blog, SouthernPlayalisticEvolutionMusic on the Southern Fried Science Network. I still have [...]

It takes two the cheat, but actually cheating involves at least three individuals. First are the two betrothed lovers and next there is the one who indulges the betrayer. Cheating is one of the most popular relationship topics of all time.  It never seems to get a rest. Why is that? Well, the affair itself [...]

My Hip Hop Sexual Selection class has no official text, but research papers by David Buss, Psychology Professor at Univerity of Texas, are quickly making up the majority of the papers we read and discuss in class.  I deliberately expect my students to examine human sexual behavior within the evolutionary context of sexual selection, as a result his [...]

From SouthernPlayalisticEvolutionMusic on the Southern Fried Science Network. ******************** Often I am asked, “How do you come up with posts? Do you read a paper/see a talk and come up with a song or do you hear a song and try to come up with a paper for it?” The answer is both. But for [...]

Thanks to my Science peeps Twitter feed I came across this recent story from Gawker Love of Wal-Mart Moves Man to Masturbate in Public. I was sure it couldn’t be a real story, but it seems it might be. A 28 year-old in Louisiana was arrested for driving around a Wal-Mart parking lot with his [...]