Emilio Ferrer, a psychology professor at University of California, Davis, who has conducted a series of studies on couples in romantic relationships, finds that couples connected to monitors measuring heart rates and respiration get their heart rate in sync, and they breathe in and out at the same intervals.

To collect the data, the researchers conducted a series of exercises, sitting 32 heterosexual couples a few feet away from each other in a quiet, calm room. The couples did not speak or touch.

“We’ve seen a lot of research that one person in a relationship can experience what the other person is experiencing emotionally, but this study shows they also share experiences at a physiological level,” Ferrer says.

VIA

You don’t get to choose whether this dress is revealing or not — your carnal instincts do.

The ‘Intimacy 2.0’ dress, designed by Daan Roosegaarde, is getting a rise out of the fashion world because its opaque fabric becomes transparent when you get aroused. Finally, all the cards will be on the table. You’ll have your date saying, “Is your dress disappearing, or are you just happy to see me?”

The already barely-there garment features ribbons of leather and opaque “e-foils,” which can detect the model’s heartbeat, the Daily Mail reports.

VIA

Maybe it was because they had met on OkCupid. But when the dark-eyed musician with artfully disheveled hair asked Shani Silver, a social media and blog manager in Philadelphia, out on a “date” Friday night, she was expecting at least a drink, one on one.

“At 10 p.m., I hadn’t heard from him,” said Ms. Silver, 30, who wore her favorite skinny black jeans. Finally, at 10:30, he sent a text message. “Hey, I’m at Pub & Kitchen, want to meet up for a drink or whatever?” he wrote, before adding, “I’m here with a bunch of friends from college.”

Turned off, she fired back a text message, politely declining. But in retrospect, she might have adjusted her expectations. “The word ‘date’ should almost be stricken from the dictionary,” Ms. Silver said. “Dating culture has evolved to a cycle of text messages, each one requiring the code-breaking skills of a cold war spy to interpret.”

CONTINUE

“What is love” was the most searched phrase on Google in 2012, according to the company. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the question once and for all, the Guardian has gathered writers from the fields of science, psychotherapy, literature, religion and philosophy to give their definition of the much-pondered word.

The physicist: ‘Love is chemistry’

Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. However, from an evolutionary perspective, love can be viewed as a survival tool – a mechanism we have evolved to promote long-term relationships, mutual defence and parental support of children and to promote feelings of safety and security.

Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist and science writer

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The findings, presented Monday, Dec. 17 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco, show for the first time that mechanical forces alone can revert and stop the out-of-control growth of cancer cells. This change happens even though the genetic mutations responsible for malignancy remain, setting up a nature-versus-nurture battle in determining a cell’s fate.

“We are showing that tissue organization is sensitive to mechanical inputs from the environment at the beginning stages of growth and development,” said principal investigator Daniel Fletcher, professor of bioengineering at Berkeley and faculty scientist at the Berkeley Lab. “An early signal, in the form of compression, appears to get these malignant cells back on the right track.”

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A growing body of evidence suggests humans subconsciously transmit emotions via smell.

Pheromones, anyone?

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The American Psychiatric Association regards Female Orgasmic Disorder as an official diagnosis. It’s in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, defined as a situation in which a woman is experiencing stress because her “orgasmic capacity is less than would be reasonable for her age, sexual experience, and the adequacy of the sexual simulation she receives.” 

No matter how the notion of Female Orgasmic Disorder strikes you, someone thinks your opinion is sexist. How we classify and name the aforementioned hypo-orgasmic scenario is passionately, hotly contested. To deny its medical validity is to deny women’s right to sexual prosperity; to support it is to put undue onus and the stigma of a “disorder” on women who aren’t having orgasms. Both sides believe it affects how we regard and treat women and these symptoms. That’s why a nasal-spray called Tefina (in development in Australia and Canada; just approved for phase two trials by Health Canada) designed to treat the condition — which could initially seem like a win-win-win-win-win proposition — is actually conspicuously contentious.

(Source: The Atlantic)

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)

And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.

PS You have to be brave.

Excerpt from Big Questions from Little People & Simple Answers from Great Minds ↬ Maria Popova