Behavior sciences: Why do men pay for sex?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 month 2 days (www.sciam.com)

Scientific American describes men's motives for patronizing prostitutes. Historically, the debate has been over whether prostitution is caused by the choices prostitutes make or by their patrons' appetites.

According to this article, johns (prostitutes' male patrons) span all socioeconomic classes and don't have any signature pathology.

One of the two points of view displayed in the article is that many johns are interested in romance as well as sex and go to prostitutes for what they see as emotionally risk-free, if illusory intimacy

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The dog: a biologist's best friend

jerry submitted, created time 5 months 3 weeks (www.current-biology.com)

In your interactions with dogs you have likely wondered: do dogs recognize each other and different people? How sensitive is a dog's nose and what is their vision like? How good are dogs at finding their way home? What can a dog learn from another dog? Do dogs know what you are trying to say? Do they know what you are thinking? When did dogs start living with humans and why? Where did dogs originate? What are the differences between breeds? Whether one is a behavioral geneticist, a population biologist, a psychologist, an anthropologist or just a dog lover

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Going it alone

annatto submitted, created time 1 year 2 months (www.reutershealth.com)

Some researchers said the online survey of 9,743 adults conducted between October 4-8 showed that some younger people viewed the Internet as their new best friend.Besides one in four Americans has a social networking profile such as MySpace or Facebook, among 18-24 year-olds this is almost mandatory with 78 percent of them having a social networking profile.

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Can armbands alter behavior? Bangkok uses terrifying cat to keep police in line.

Photoperiod reverses the effects of estrogens on male aggression via genomic and nongenomic pathways

addict submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.pnas.org)

Despite recent discoveries of the specific contributions of genes to behavior, the molecular mechanisms mediating contributions of the environment are understudied. We demonstrate that the behavioral effects of estrogens on aggression are completely reversed by a discrete environmental signal, day length. Selective activation of either estrogen receptor {alpha} or {beta} decreases aggression in long days and increases aggression in short days.

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Paternity discrepancy -- society, trust and possible evolutionary basis

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (men.msn.com)

This is a little less reputable than I usually prefer to post. It is mostly about social roles and trust issues, but it does address the evolutionary aspects of fatherhood. Mostly, I've just never heard of "paternity discrepancy" before. It refers to the phenomenon of a man raising a child that is not, despite his beliefs to the contrary, his genetic offspring. (Knowing adoptive fathers and stepfathers do not apply.)

The article quotes Dr

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Don’t like being nagged? Problem may be yours

amanda submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (www.msnbc.msn.com)

"When your spouse nags you to mail the taxes, or pick up a gallon of milk after work, or your boss asks you to stay late — what's your reaction? "

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Good Behavior, Religiousness May Be Genetic

diggman submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.blackwellpublishing.com)

A new study in Journal of Personality shows that selfless and social behavior is not purely a product of environment, specifically religious environment. After studying the behavior of adult twins, researchers found that, while altruistic behavior and religiousness tended to appear together, the correlation was due to both environmental and genetic factors.

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Social Life Of Honeybees Coordinated By A Single Gene

BIOBOSS submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.sciencedaily.com)

Students of the evolution of social behavior got a big boost with the publication of the newly sequenced honeybee genome in October 2006. The honeybee (Apis mellifera) belongs to the rarified cadre of insects that pool resources, divide tasks, and communicate with each other in highly structured colonies. Understanding how this advanced state of organization evolved from a solitary lifestyle has been an enduring question in biology.

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