Guest Thinkers — February 12, 2011

The Love Hormone’s Dark Side

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, love is in the air. Or is it oxytocin? Research suggests that the so-called "love hormone" isn't all roses and heart-shaped chocolates.

bigthinkeditor

Oxytocin is marketed as an all-purpose “love drug” year-round. Online, sellers shill a product called “liquid trust” that purports to contain oxytocin and promises to create an “environment within which you are more attractive to people you previously had no luck with.” In San Antonio, Texas, at least one doctor prescribes dissolvable oxytocin strips for husbands and wives going through rough patches, according to a Feb. 10 news report by local news station KENS5. Even cultural and political commentators have touted oxytocin’s effects, arguing that the hormone makes no-strings-attached sex impossible, especially for women.

Starts With A Bang

The unsurprising non-detection of intelligent aliens

Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where's everyone else?

A person in a dark robe wielding a glowing red lightsaber on a desert dune under a night sky with a large crescent moon and a visible planet.

High Culture

Does science fiction shape the future?

Six visionary science fiction authors on the social impact of their work.

A human brain preserved in a clear glass container filled with a yellowish preserving fluid, set against a bright, light green background.

13.8

The key problem with the “brain in a vat” thought experiment

Even with the best technology imaginable, you'd probably never be able to exist as a consciously aware brain in a vat.

A dramatic solar eclipse with a radiant ring of fire visible around the moon, set against a backdrop of clouds and a sunburst.

13.8

A cosmic coincidence: What eclipses tell us about Earth

Total eclipses are a product of a strange and almost eerie cosmic coincidence — one that makes Earth an even rarer world in the galaxy and, by proxy, in the Universe.

Starts With A Bang

If photons have mass, could they explain dark matter?

Our Universe requires dark matter in order to make sense of things, astrophysically. Could massive photons do the trick?

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

Is American Business Corrupt?

While an actual level of shady and dishonest practices is probably impossible to measure, the U.S. has slipped from 19 to 22 in the latest ranking of perceived public corruption.