Diane Kelly

io9Books & Comics

Throb’s Holiday Gift Guide for the Sexily Inquisitive

Know someone who enjoys the stimulation of a good book? What about someone who enjoys stimulation of another sort? This holiday season, Throb has got some great gift ideas to show your special someone that you appreciate both their mind and their body. The Reason for Flowers by Stephen Buchmann Flowers have a ton of … Continued

Tech News

Frustrated College Professors Launch Their Own Sex Ed MOOC 

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that high school sex education in the United States is an unholy mess. And as a result, an alarming number of students enter college with little knowledge about how their bodies work in terms of reproductive health. A team of Northwestern University professors led by Teresa Woodruff is addressing … Continued

Tech News

In Tight Spaces, Sperm Slither Rather Than Shimmy

Sperm usually swim in a 3D shimmy: a spiral wave travels down the whippy flagellum and rotates its head in a circle around its long axis. That “bulk swimming” is fine most of the time, but it isn’t a great option when a sperm cell gets close to a surface. That’s when they switch to … Continued

Tech News

Why Some Women Are Born With Ovaries But No Uterus 

The New York Times is following a team of doctors at the Cleveland Clinic as they attempt the first uterus transplant in the United States. If successful, the procedure will let women who’ve had a hysterectomy, or who were born without a uterus, carry a fetus to term and give birth. Wait — some women … Continued

ScienceAnimals

One “Supergene” May Determine Mating Strategies for These Male Birds 

The birds you see above are all ruffs (Philomachus pugnax): wading birds that summer in marshes through Northern Europe and Asia. All three are wearing different forms of breeding plumage. And all of them are male. The differences in the way they look reflect differences in their strategies for finding mates. And a pair of … Continued

Tech News

If This Product is Real, We’ve Passed Peak Vibrator

Someone please tell me this is a hoax. Announced yesterday with a tweet, the IziVibe claims to be a vibrating dildo you attach to your phone. But it makes no sense– a phone’s motor can’t possibly be powerful enough to wiggle that big hunk of silicone in any significant, pleasure-inducing way. And it’s run off … Continued

Tech News

Sex Isn’t As Risky As You Think It Is

People are crap at estimating risk. They’re scared of flying, for example, even though it’s far less likely that their metal sky-bird will crash and burn than their car will get crushed by a truck on the way to the airport. Combine that with a tendency to get judgey about sex, and you’ll find attitudes … Continued

Tech News

Do the Herbs in Natural Erection Supplements Really Make You Harder? 

The companies that market so-called “natural” sexual health supplements make a lot of promises, especially when they’re pitching more frequent and harder erections. But do the herbs they put in those pills actually, y’know… work? Last month, a group of urologists from the Wake Forest School of Medicine checked for you. They surveyed the 30 … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Seahorse Mating is a Risky Gender-Bending Water Ballet

Seahorses are famous for flipping the usual reproductive pattern on its head–a seahorse female impregnates the male by laying eggs in his pouch, and the male cares for the developing babies through an 18 day “pregnancy.” But you have to wonder: how does she get her eggs in there? This new film of wild potbellied … Continued

Tech News

Asking Men When Their Voice Broke Helped Find Genes For Start of Puberty  

Puberty has a clear physiological signpost in girls: sooner or later, they have their first period. That’s been a critical part of identifying genes that influence when puberty starts in girls, but it wasn’t clear whether those genes also affected boys the same way. To find out, researchers — led by University of Cambridge geneticist … Continued

ScienceAnimals

This Spider’s Mate Breaks Her Genitals So She Can’t Have Sex Ever Again

Male animals can be greedy about paternity. They’ve evolved a ton of different strategies to help them monopolize a female’s eggs. Beating up rivals is a general favorite. Some species use long bouts of sex to keep females away from new mates. Still others stop up female genitals with gooey plugs or bits of broken … Continued

Tech News

Your Cheatin’ Heart? More Like Your Cheatin’ Brain.

Some people cheat on their partners. Others wouldn’t dream of it–the risk is too huge. A new video from ASAP Science lays out how genetic differences in the neurotransmitters that promote risk-taking and social bonding might influence people’s willingness to stray. And while the video focuses on “extra-pair matings” in humans, it’s worth pointing out … Continued

Tech News

Can We Turn Stem Cells Into Eggs?  

Northeastern University biologist Jonathan Tilly is certain he’s found egg-making stem cells in adult mice. If he’s right, it would refute decades-old work that showed female mammals finish making all their eggs before or shortly after birth. This might make it possible to grow new eggs inside the ovaries of older women. In a feature … Continued

Tech News

The Bread Lab’s Mission to Breed The Best New Wheats 

The Bread Lab at Washington State University is a collaboration between plant geneticists and master bakers. The goal? To breed new varieties of wheat that can turn out superior breads and beers while still growing well in the cool and wet Northwest climate. According to Ferris Jabr’s profile of the lab in the New York … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Watch A Baby Black Rhino Being Born

This short video from the Howletts Wild Animal Park captures the moment an endangered black rhinoceros entered the world last month. It’s the grand finale of a 15 month long gestation. The first thing you see are the tiny front hooves. Then, like most mammals, the baby exits head-first. A twist of mom’s body strips … Continued

Tech News

The Last-Ditch Fertilization Method For Infertile Men Just Got More Reliable

For the past 25 years, men whose sperm can’t manage the arduous swim across a Petri dish have had the option of injecting a single sperm cell directly into an egg. But that method still left some sterile men out in the cold. These are the men whose sperm never start the process of growing … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

There’s a Kegel Exerciser Designed to Give Men Taints of Steel on Kickstarter Right Now

Wait–men do Kegels? If you’ve heard of the exercises at all, it’s as a way for women to tone up their vaginas after they’ve been stretched to the max by childbirth. Minna Life, makers of the female-oriented Kegel exerciser kGoal, thinks men should get into the habit, too. They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign for the … Continued

ScienceAnimals

It’s All a Numbers Game at the Annual Coral Orgy 

The corals of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are having their annual orgy. Although some corals brood their eggs in their bodies, or bud off clones, most of the Great Barrier Reef’s corals–140 species worth–release clouds of eggs and sperm into the water en masse. Tossing precious gametes into the vast vast ocean creates a physics … Continued

ScienceAnimals

Bird Eggs Need Extra Sperm To Make Chicks

You know the story of mammalian fertilization: millions of sperm enter the vagina, only one fertilizes the egg, more than one messes up the embryo, yadda yadda yadda. Turns out that’s not the only way it can work. Birds, for example, always have multiple sperm penetrating each egg. Only one of those sperm actually fertilizes … Continued

Tech News

Think Men Don’t Want to Date Smart Women? Not So Fast!

Maybe you heard about that study that showed men don’t want to date smart women. It certainly plays into our stereotypes of how men behave, and it got a lot of press as a result. But if you actually dig into the paper, you’ll find there are some serious problems with those results. Let’s take … Continued