Category: Biology

Erotic pictures could cause brain crash

TL:DR – Visual overload caused by gore or phwoarrh can cause emotional blindness, according to research done in the USA back in 2005.

Forget Cronenburg’s Crash…

If you feel your viewing partner cannot see you while watching TV, it could be that the flash of nudity that was on the screen, just then, has caused emotional blindness. The same effect could lead to accidents if drivers succumb to this condition having seen a suggestive billboard.

Portions of the research exploring this effect by Vanderbilt University psychologist David Zald and Yale University colleagues was published in the August 2005 issue of Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

“We observed that people fail to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images,” Zald said.

Anyone who has ever slowed down to look at an accident as they are driving by–or has been stuck behind someone who has–is familiar with the “rubbernecking” effect. Even though we know we need to keep our eyes on the road, our emotions of concern, fear and curiosity cause us to stare out of the window at the accident and slow to a crawl as we drive by. The same thing seems to happen whether it gore or phwoarr!

Study: Genistein in soya may harm male fertility

I found an interesting write-up of that soy and sperm story I blogged yesterday: Genistein in soya

The author makes a similar point to me: “The study does not reveal how genistein would affect in vivo human sperm.”

But, then he says, “In reality, Asian people use a lot of soya products, but they don’t seem to have a fertility problem.” What does he mean “in reality”? As opposed to “in the laboratory?”, “in virtuality?”, “on TV?”, what? Anyway, how does he know that Asian people don’t suffer fertility problems, is he assuming that because the populations of Asian countries are high that individuals are fecund?

Anyway, back to the science – the isoflavone genistein has been shown in separate studies to have estrogenic and anti-estrogenic properties and also to be a cancer protective. But, then others have shown it to cause uterine cancer…I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the truth, especially given that much of the research into the health benefits of soya products has been funded over the years by soya manufacturers.

Soybean Sperm Assassin

According to the BBC today, soybeans, peas, and French beans can affect fertility. Apparently, women shouldn’t eat these leguminous veggies because they can damage sperm. Surely it should be men that ought to avoid these vegetables…or is it that eating them releases something into the female reproductive tract that seeks and destroys sperm? The BBC didn’t say.

One thing that should be pointed out is that the researchers in question have only demonstrated the effect in the laboratory, said The Beeb. I reckon those researchers ought to be more careful about what they get up to in their lab, testing out their fertility on each other…

One other thing, before I go, according to http://www.nulldrweil.com/u/QA/QA89074/ if you’re undergoing IVF then both partners need to up their zinc intake and guess what he cites as the best vegetarian sources of Zn…legumes (dried beans, garbanzos, black-eyed peas, lentils, peas, soy products and whole grains).

Talk about conflicting evidence.

Orgasms fill the news

Orgasm seems to be the hot topic for science news this summer. We had the genetic basis of female orgasm a couple of weeks ago and now The Register is reporting how women’s brains switch off when they are brought to orgasm by their partner. How can they tell? Bedside MRI apparently. So if you have a few million dollars to spare, says the naughty little publication, you can spot a fake.

Genetic Orgasm

It’s no surprise that one of the most widely repeated news items this week is the finding that genetics is involved in a woman’s ability to achieve an orgasm: Google Search: orgasm genetics. But, does this give men a sexual get out clause? Probably not, the research suggests that couples may simply have to “work” harder. One thing that is missing from all the discussion in the news is how a particular gene package actually precludes orgasm. They talk about women who can orgasm through masturbation but not intercourse, and emphasise that environmental and psychological factors are also involved, but is it a brain chemistry effect (genetically speaking) or perhaps just a matter of anatomy?

Anyway, how would you like to have beaucoup des petit morts? Killer orgasms, in other words.

Premature communication

One unfortunate beachcomber almost trod in something resembling a severed human penis and testicles, on a New Zealand beach and called the police: Cod story of the week!

However, it was a premature communication, according to the Oddstuff website. It turned out to be some kind of anemone, although no private dick with a marine biology degree was on hand to confirm this.

Meanwhile, fishermen reported sighting a merman, complete with requisite green-black hair, gills, webbed hands, and “protruding stomach”, reports Ananova.

Are these two stories linked? It all seems very fishy to me…

Who Needs Genes?

It seems that a meeting underway in Exeter this week may very well draw the conclusion that genes, the mainstay of the whole of the last half century or more of biological science, don’t actually exist, at least according to the published abstract from UPenn’s Karola Stotz and colleagues (link died since time of writing).

Stotz explains that daily findings from the life sciences continually imply that the gene as a particulate entity in the genome is not supported by the evidence. They also suggest that science journalists, as both reporters and critics, perhaps have a role to play in the public understanding of post-genomic science. Presumably, this means we should somehow be mediating the discovery of a supposed gene for this disease or that behaviour, and explaining clearly that there are very few biologists now who see “genes” as the particulate entities that explained Mendel’s findings all those years ago. Indeed, headlines shouting about an “asthma gene”, “a gene for homosexuality”, or “the gene controlling suicidal tendencies” must be spiked as of now (and maybe always should have been). I’ll be on my best behaviour in this regard from now on, although I cannot promise I don’t have the gene for being contrary and so might renege on my promise…

The Taxonomy of Daftodils

No sooner had I blogged my daftodils photo than answers to my species query started to arrive. Science librarian Rebecca Hedreen, of the Buley Library (presumably digging deep for useful horticultural information for her readers), was first in, suggesting that the plant in question is actually Narcisssus photoshopia. Apparently, this species comes in a variety known as Narcisssus photoshopia elementis, which is available to the virtual gardener on a budget!

Rational Drug Design

Science Writer David Bradley is currently working on an RSS newsfeed for Simulated Biomolecular Systems, better known as SimBioSys Inc, a Canadian company that specialises in chemistry software with a difference.

UPDATE: Keen-eyed readers will probably have noticed that Sciencebase is no longer working on this project with the chemistry software company. However, I can point you to some exciting developmental work between my co-workers at Chemspider.com and Symbiosis.

Symbiosis is working with ChemSpider on the LASSO project with ChemSpider. Indeed, LASSO descriptor is now available for almost all 18+ million structures in the Chemspider structure database. They have also added the virtual screening results for all ligands against 40 target families, from the DUD database of decoys.

Chemspider recently revealed the preliminary results of this very large cross screening work and the two businesses are now working together to clean up the interface and more powerful search capabilities.

Libido inhibitors

According to an article in the New York Times, a drug used to counteract the libido-inhibiting side-effects of Prozac and other selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI) used as antidepressants in men and women, has a side effect of its own. Apparently, a female patient taking the popular SSRI Zoloft, was prescribed Wellbutrin to try and resurrect her vanished libido. She reported a rather odd shopping experience to her physician in which she had “suffered” an unusual side effect of the drug – an orgasm that lasted, on and off, for two hours.

The patient was apparently delighted, but her physician was concerned that the drug had triggered an episode of hypersexual mania. However, the side effects have not come again, although the patient’s libido has returned and she is enjoying an active sex life once again. I wonder what she’d make of spray-on condoms and the nasal libido spray.