BOSTON, Feb. 28, 2011 — A gel developed to protect against HIV during vaginal sex produced a strong antiviral effect when used in the rectum, according to an early-phase study presented today at the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisti…
Tag Archives | sex
Spring break
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— College students who arrange with friends to “get their backs” are less likely to engage in risky Spring Break behavior, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
About 60 percent of ab…
Choices — not discrimination — determine success for women scientists, Cornell researchers say
ITHACA, N.Y. — It’s an incendiary topic in academia — the pervasive belief that women are underrepresented in science, math and engineering fields because they face sex discrimination in the interviewing, hiring, and grant and manuscript review …
When a blockbuster becomes lackluster: Not all movie-watching experiences are created equal
MANHATTAN, KAN. — When you sit down to watch a new flick, whether you enjoy the movie may depend on the person sitting next to you, according to research from a Kansas State University professor. It’s especially true if you are awkwardly watching a…
Boy or girl? Australians think we shouldn’t choose
Most Australians do not approve of IVF or abortion for sex-selection purposes, and most do not think a hypothetical blue or pink pill to select the sex of a child should be legal, a new study has found.
The study, led by Dr Rebecca Kippen from th…
Frequent sex protects marital happiness for neurotic newlyweds
Los Angeles, CA (December 8, 2010) People who are neurotic often have more difficulty with relationships and marriage. But if neurotic newlyweds have frequent sexual relations, their marital satisfaction is every bit as high as their less neurotic c…
Crucial sex hormones re-routed by missing molecule
A hormone responsible for the onset of puberty can end up stuck in the wrong part of the body if the nerve pathways responsible for its transport to the brain fail to develop properly, according to research funded by the Biotechnology and Biological…
Daily dose of HIV drug reduces risk of HIV infection
A daily dose of an oral antiretroviral drug, currently approved to treat HIV infection, reduced the risk of acquiring HIV infection by 43.8 percent among men who have sex with men. The findings, a major advance in HIV prevention research, come from …
Does sex matter? It may when evaluating mental status
Montreal, November 18, 2010 — Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that differs between the sexes in terms of age at onset, symptomatology, response to medication, and structural brain abnormalities. Now, a new study from the Université de Mon…
Depression linked to HIV risk among South African young people, study shows
University of Alberta research has discovered a strong link between depression and risky sexual behaviours such as improper condom use, transactional sex and relationship violence among young people in South Africa.
The research shows that depress…
Highlighting gender promotes stereotyped views in preschoolers
In many preschool classrooms, gender is very noticeable — think of the greeting, “Good morning, boys and girls” or the instruction, “Girls line up on this side, boys on that.” A new study has found that when teachers call attention to gender in the…
Pleasurable behaviors reduce stress via brain pathways, research shows
CINCINNATI — Whether it’s food or sex, pleasurable activity provides more than just pleasure, University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers say. It actually reduces stress by inhibiting anxiety responses in the brain.
The findings were published onli…
Single parenthood doesn’t pay off for plants
Durham, NC — Many plants can pollinate themselves and reproduce without the aid of a mate, thanks to having both male and female parts. But the short-term perks of being able to go it alone come with long-term costs, says a new study in the journa…
Not so fast — sex differences in the brain are overblown
People love to speculate about differences between the sexes, and neuroscience has brought a new technology to this pastime. Brain imaging studies are published at a great rate, and some report sex differences in brain structure or patterns of neura…
Too many sisters affect male sexuality
Growing up with lots of sisters makes a man less sexy. For rats, anyway. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that the sex ratio of a male rat’s family when he’s growing up inf…
Research will help ID bodies left behind by Chilean earthquake, Pinochet regime
New research from North Carolina State University will help medical examiners and others identify human remains of those killed during the recent earthquake in Chile, as well as the bodies of the “disappeared” who were killed during the Pinochet…
Diabetes impairs but does not halt sex among older adults
Many middle-aged and older adults with diabetes are sexually active according to a study of nearly 2,000 people aged 57 to 85 presented in the September 2010 issue of the journal Diabetes Care. Almost 70 percent of partnered men with diabetes and 62…
For teens, early sex and media exposure not linked
The prevalence of sex in the mainstream media has led many researchers to study its effect on impressionable adolescents. Several published, peer-reviewed studies have indicated that there is a link between exposure to sex in the media and the early…
Good sexual intercourse lasts minutes, not hours
Satisfactory sexual intercourse for couples lasts from 3 to 13 minutes, contrary to popular fantasy about the need for hours of sexual activity, according to a survey of U.S. and Canadian sex therapists.
Should men abstain from sex before fertility treatment?
New research by Israeli fertility experts has challenged current medical opinion, which holds that refraining from sex for up to a week at least is beneficial for men prior to undergoing some types of fertility treatment. Doctors and scientists from Soroka University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, tested over 7,200 semen samples for semen volume, sperm concentration and shape, and the percentage and total count of motile (active and moving) sperm. The samples were from around 6,000 men being investigated or treated for infertility who had abstained from sex for periods up to two weeks.
Men, women both crazy jealous
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, or so we’ve been told, and when it comes to jealousy this is especially true. Men, psychologists have long contended, tend to care more about sexual infidelity while women usually react more strongly to emotional infidelity. This view has long been espoused by evolutionary psychologists who attribute these gender differences to natural selection, which, they say, encouraged the sexes to develop different emotional reactions to jealousy. However, a recent research paper published in Personality and Social Psychology Review by Christine Harris, a psychologist with the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, casts serious doubts on this view of gender differences on jealousy and argues that more men and women appear to view sexual and emotional jealousy in the same light.
Young gay males are anxious, depressed and ignorant of HIV status
An alarming number of young gay men appear to be highly anxious and depressed, expressing high levels of self-hatred and low self-esteem, according to new research funded by the ESRC. And whilst they are aware of health warnings, the majority have had unprotected sex and few know their current HIV/AIDS status, says the study led by Dr Debra Bekerian of the University of East London’s School of Psychology. Based on preliminary analyses, the report also suggests that young gays who claim to have been traumatised in the past, perhaps through loss of a friend, abuse or violence, are less likely to engage in unsafe sexual practices once they know their current HIV status.
HIV-positive inmates say often have unprotected sex before, after release
Inmates infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, engaged in unprotected sex both before imprisonment and after their release at “exceedingly high rates,” according to a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine study. Seventy-eight percent of N.C. men and women prisoners carrying the virus who had a main sex partner reported unprotected sex with that person in the year before they were locked up, the study showed. Twenty-six percent of them interviewed again soon after release admitted to already having sex without condoms with their main sex partners.