Editor’s Selections: Death and Sex, Death and Football, Death and Chimpanzees

Here are my Research Blogging Editor’s Selections for this week: Let’s start out with something particularly morbid (though potentially the best lede ever): “What effect do thoughts of death have on a typical person’s desire for sex?” This fascinating post by Christian Jarrett of BPS Research Digest asks, when is death an aphrodisiac?

By Jason G. Goldman on February 8, 2011

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week:

Let's start out with something particularly morbid (though potentially the best lede ever): "What effect do thoughts of death have on a typical person's desire for sex?" This fascinating post by Christian Jarrett of BPS Research Digest asks, when is death an aphrodisiac?

If death is an aphrodisiac, then tons of sex should be occurring in Pittsburgh right now, since When Your Super Bowl Team Goes Down, Your Death Risk Goes Up. David Berreby of Mind Matters explains.

I'm not sure why death is such a prominent theme this week, but this incredibly poignant post by Eric M. Johnson of The Primate Diaries (In Exile) is a must-read. He writes about a recent study in which researchers "documented a case where a chimpanzee mother faced what for most of us would be an unthinkable horror: the death of her child," and describes a potential non-human primate model for mourning.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Jason G. Goldman

Jason G. Goldman is a science journalist based in Los Angeles. He has written about animal behavior, wildlife biology, conservation, and ecology for Scientific American, Los Angeles magazine, The Washington Post, The Guardian, the BBC, Conservation magazine, and elsewhere. He contributes to Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast, and is co-editor of Science Blogging: The Essential Guide (Yale University Press). He enjoys sharing his wildlife knowledge on television and on the radio, and often speaks to the public about wildlife and science communication.