Science Can't Explain Why Women Sleep Around

Science Still Cannot Explain Why Women Sleep Around

By Annalee Newitz, 11:47 AM on Thu Jun 25 2009, 30,765 views (Edit, to draft, un-top, Slurp)

Copy this whole post to another site

cancel

select site advertising consumerist deadspin defamer fleshbot gay fleshbot gawker gizmodo idolator io9 jalopnik jezebel kotaku lifehacker valleywag artists gawkershop

Seed beetles are polyandrous – females mate with multiple males, and choose which sperm will fertilize their eggs afterward. Scientists long believed they did this to get the best sperm. But a new study shows the fittest males always lose.

A study published today in Science details a series of careful experiments Swedish researchers conducted on mating seed beetles (pictured). They want to find out what the benefits were to females who mated with multiple males, given that multiple matings could be dangerous to their health for a variety of reasons. The accepted wisdom is that females mate with many men because they can choose which sperm fertilize their eggs after mating. Basically, more men equals a bigger and better smorgasbord to choose from in the genetics department.

If this hypothesis were true, females would always choose sperm from the fittest males to fertilize their eggs. But they didn't. If you measure male fitness as the ability to produce a great number of offspring who themselves produce a great number of offspring, then the fittest males always lost. Inevitably, the females chose sperm from unfit males.

Why would these insects have sex with so many different men, only to choose the crappiest sperm? The researchers admit that they are baffled. Their experiment was only intended to determine whether females favored sperm from fit males – not to plumb the depths of the psychology behind female insect promiscuity.

However, what these Swedish researchers have done is eliminate one possible reason why female insects mate with multiple males. They're not doing it because of genetic benefits that come from the males. They are not picking sperm that have direct or indirect benefits on their offspring, as far as the researchers could tell. Though they do float the possibility that these females may be choosing sperm that are beneficial exclusively to female offspring. In other words, genes that make fathers fit may not make daughters who are fit.

According to researcher Göran Arnqvist:

The results support the suggestion that genes that are good for males may often be bad for their mates. Therefore, in beetles at least, multiple mating does not award females with genetic benefits.

So if multiple mating does not award females with genetic benefits, what exactly does it award them with? Is it possible that they're sleeping around just for fun?

via Science and Uppsala University

Dude, why wasn't I invited...? (oh yeah...)

Army Assembles 'Mad Scientist' Conference. Seriously.

By Noah Shachtman January 09, 2009 | 5:25:00 PMCategories: Bizarro

Last August, the U.S. Army held a three-day conference in Portsmouth, Virginia, to look at new developments in military science and hardware. The confab was called the "2008 Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar." Really. It was.

"The objective of the seminar was to investigate proliferating technologies with the potential to empower individuals and groups in the next 10-25 years," according to an unclassified summary of the Mad Scientist gathering, obtained by Danger Room.

As you'd expect from such a colorfully-titled gathering, the collected brains predicted a world in which individuals would have easy access to everything from ray guns to nano-bots to bioengineered weapons to arms for creating international chaos online.

"The U.S. must accept the reality that it can no longer assume technological superiority over the rest of the world. Ready access to scientific information and technological know-how has and will continue to level the playing field," the Mad Scientist summary notes. "In the operational environment of 2030 and beyond, the destructive/disruptive capability of the individual and small group will be more effective, more lethal, more easily developed/acquired, more efficiently delivered, and more easily concealed and transported... Individuals with access to the global information grid can easily acquire the knowledge needed to develop lethal bio agents, literally in their kitchen sink. Nanotechnology and robotics will offer opportunities to introduce and spread bio and chemical agents into targeted populations."

Turning to forward-looking thinkers is a time-honored government tradition. Shortly after 9/11, for instance, the Army met with Hollywood screenwriters and directors to forecast terrorist scenarios. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security held a gathering of science-fiction writers to solicit advice on which technology programs to fund. In comparison, the Mad Scientist gathering of Ivy League researchers, defense contractors, think tankers, and NASA scientists seems rather conventional.

The Mad Scientist group sees more than just a world of danger in the 2030s. "Most likely results include an increased life span, a solution to the energy crisis, ready availability of food and fresh water to all, a global distribution of technology, education, economics, and -- therefore -- wealth. This will reduce the tension between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' while the capabilities of robotics and access to virtual reality to both care for and entertain will create the perception of well-being almost universally around the globe. Advancements are limited only by imagination and resources."

Who knows what they'll dream up after that?