Making Science More Better For You on 06/18/08

Headlines of the day
5th human foot mysteriously washes up (CNN)
Why can’t this moron go to Payless like everyone else?

Police Find Lobster Tails Down Cooks Pants (WCBS)
Boil'em. Dano.

If they want to monkey around they should just do what humans do and turn up the stereo.

Shhhh! Quiet copulation key for female chimps

By Michael KahnPosted 2008/06/17 at 9:42 pm EDT

LONDON, June 17, 2008 (Reuters) — Female chimps keep quiet during sex to keep other females from finding out and punishing them for mating with the best males, British researchers said on Wednesday.

The study of chimp copulation calls also found that females seem more concerned with having sex with as many mates as possible rather than just finding the strongest male as a way to confuse paternity and secure future protection for offspring.

"They are trying to make the high-ranking males think they are the father," said Simon Townsend, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Britain, who led the study. "If you confuse paternity, they are more likely to provide that female with future support."

The findings show that chimps -- our closest living relatives -- can use their calls flexibly in response to social factors while knowing more about the apes could help in conservation efforts, he added.

Researchers have long been interested in mating calls of different animals, especially primates. A common hypothesis is that females use such calls to advertise to prospective males they are ready to mate, which in turn incites competition that leads to the strongest partner and highest quality offspring.

But it appears the female chimps are also a touch more savvy about the opposite sex, according to the findings published in the journal PLoS One.

"The female chimps we observed in the wild seemed to be much more concerned with having sex with many different males, without other females finding out about it, than causing males to fight over them," Townsend said.

Ah yes, another research question based on someone’s fantasy life.


We've always thought of donuts as a form of self-medication.

Study: Depression and Diabetes May Trigger Each Other

Not only are people with type 2 diabetes more prone to depression, but people with depression are more prone to getting diabetes, a new study, published in the June 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found.

Researchers have long known that type 2 diabetes and depression often go hand-in-hand, according to the study, so researchers with Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore set out to determine which comes first.

Dr. Sherita Hill Golden and her colleagues looked at data from an ethnically diverse group of 6,814 men and women between ages 45 to 84. Study participants identified themselves as white, black, Hispanic or Chinese.

Participants made three visits to clinics over the course of three years.

How about an éclair stuffed with Prozac?