Do Sparrows Like Bach?: The Strange and Wonderful Things that Are Discovered When Scientists Break Free

by Unknown

  On 40 occasions between 1992 and 1994, a defence network of microphones attached to buoys detected the sound of bubbles caused by a rotational movement in the water. The navy estimated the speed at up to 200 revolutions per minute, and assumed it must be submarine propellers.

  But the navy was wrong, said the commission. According to its secretary, Ingvar Akesson, tests with swimming mink or otters showed that they could produce the same readings as propellers. ‘It is very puzzling, but they do,’ he said. The navy accepted that in some cases it might have confused the two sounds.

  And it’s still the defence of the realm to which we turn for an even more laughable instance of inventor stupidity.

  ‘Secret’ terrorist trap gets worldwide publicity

  In 1991, two companies jointly developed a security system for airports designed to trap terrorists and drug smugglers. To be effective the system, which detected traces of bomb-making chemicals on passenger boarding cards, relied on complete secrecy—but to protect their commercial interests the developers made the mistake of filing a European patent application, thereby ensuring that full details were available in libraries all around the world for everyone, including terrorists and drug smugglers, to read.

  Paul Wilkinson, director of the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism at St Andrew’s University, confirmed that publishing the idea in a patent application gave the game away. ‘The more sophisticated organisations read all the scientific literature,’ he said. ‘They study the technology and work out ways of evading it. Now it will only pick up mad bombers with home-made devices and amateur newcomers,’ he feared.

  All of which leads to a final practical example of direct experimentation. There can be no research more trustworthy than that which has been carried out by the subjects themselves. Although not a scientist, this lay researcher will be thanked by anybody attempting to quit smoking for proving to them what they might have suspected in the first place.

  Better lead than dead

  If you are thinking of giving up smoking, you are recommended not to chew electrical cables to ease your withdrawal pangs. This, according to the Australian Medical Journal, is what one Antipodean building site worker did. He got through almost a metre of cable a day for ten years, and found it extremely soothing, with a ‘sweet and pleasant taste’.

  In 1996, the man was admitted to hospital with stomach pains. Unfortunately, the cables he was gnawing contained lead to make them more flexible. And doctors found that the lead levels in the man’s blood were three times the safety limit.

  Thanks to prompt treatment, his blood level returned to normal. But he failed to quit smoking.

  6 Love, sex and all that stuff

  Ah yes…sex. It’s probably fair to say that scientists are rarely trendsetters. So if sex wasn’t invented until the 1960s, science didn’t truly embrace this groundswell of fashion until a couple of decades later, as our pick of the bunch below seems to indicate. But once scientists got their teeth into it, just as with any discipline, there was going to be no lying back and thinking of Einstein.

  It’s possible that scientists were desperate to prove that they were as normal (or at least as open-minded) as the next person, a process that perhaps reached its apotheosis when, in the mid-1990s, an American science radio show thought it prudent to release the annual beefcake calendar Studmuffins of Science. Science has been apologising ever since.

  But in the noughties we are all a little more grown up than we were. Or at least we hope we are. Nonetheless, some of the items we discovered when researching this book raised eyebrows (if very little else). All of which meant that deciding what to put into this chapter and what to leave out left the editor in a similar dilemma to the one he faced when, on selecting the first seven letters in a game of Scrabble he drew out, at incredible odds and in straight order: S-C-R-O-T-U-M. The word would almost certainly win the match on the first play of the game but could you—dare you—impose the word on your 80-year-old grandmother?

  Such mental torment loomed over this chapter. New Scientist has certainly covered some esoteric sex-based discoveries over the years, but should we really inflict the Hungarian musical condom on an unsuspecting readership? Or the science of Baywatch? Find out which one made it and which was consigned to the dustbin of tack below…

  Oh, and don’t read this if you’re under the age of consent. And if you have no idea what that is, ask your mum and dad, not a scientist…

  We admit we are a bit boring, but we think sex should be enjoyable. So we thought it was good news for women around the world when New Scientist announced an unexpected discovery.

  Push my button

  In the Woody Allen comedy Sleeper, a machine called an orgasmatron delivers an orgasm at the push of a button-without the hassle of sex. In 2001, life imitated art when scientists in the US patented an implant that achieved the same effect for women whose lives were blighted by an inability to achieve orgasms naturally.

  Orgasmic dysfunction is not uncommon among women, said Julia Cole, a psychosexual therapist and consultant with Relate, the relationship counselling service. And a number of issues can cause it, said Jim Pfaus, who studies the neurobiology of sexual behaviour at Concordia University in Montreal. ‘Some women confuse what’s called sympathetic arousal, like increased heart rate, clammy hands, nerves and so on, with fear,’ he explained. ‘That makes them want to get out of the situation.’ Psychotherapy is a common treatment for the condition, although if anxiety is a factor, patients may also be prescribed Valium. ‘But Valium can actually delay orgasm,’ said Pfaus.

  Stuart Meloy, a surgeon at Piedmont Anesthesia and Pain Consultants in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, got the idea for an orgasm-producing device while performing a routine pain-relief operation on a woman’s spine. ‘We implant electrodes into the spine and use electrical pulses to modify the pain signals passing along the nerves,’ he said. The patient remains conscious during the operation to help the surgeon find the best position for the electrodes. Meloy’s breakthrough came one day when he failed to hit the right spot. ‘I was placing the electrodes and suddenly the woman started exclaiming emphatically,’ he said. ‘I asked her what was up and she said, “You’re going to have to teach my husband to do that”.’

  Meloy said the stimulating wires could connect to a signal generator smaller than a packet of cigarettes implanted under the skin of one of the patient’s buttocks. ‘Then you’d have a hand-held remote control to trigger it,’ he said. ‘But it’s as invasive as a pacemaker, so this is only for extreme cases.’

  Meloy believed the device could help couples overcome problems caused by orgasmic dysfunction. ‘If you’ve got a couple who’ve been together for a while and it’s just not happening any more, maybe they’ll get through it a bit easier with this,’ he said.

  He was quick to add that the device would be programmed to limit its use. ‘But whether it’s once a day, four times a week—who am I to say?’

  But would women subject themselves to such invasive surgery? ‘If young women of 15 or so are having painful operations to enlarge their breasts when they don’t have to, are you kidding? Of course it’ll be used,’ said Pfaus.

  Surprisingly, Jim Pfaus was wrong…

  Wanted: people to test orgasmatron

  Clinical trials of the ‘orgasmatron’ began in the US in 2003, with the approval of the Food and Drug Administration.

  The device was the focus of massive media attention in 2001, after New Scientist broke the news of its existence and used the term orgasmatron to describe it. But despite all the coverage, few people volunteered for the trial. ‘I thought people would be beating my door down to become part of the trial,’ said Meloy. ‘But so far I am struggling to find people.’

  That did not surprise some experts, who thought an implant was too radical a treatment for sexual problems. ‘Why would you do it invasively if you can do it with a vibrator?’ asked Marca Sipski of the University of Miami, who studied sexual
function in women with spinal cord injuries.

  By 2003 only one woman had completed the first stage of the trial, and just one other had been signed up. Meloy hoped to find eight more to complete the first stage of the study, in which wires connected to a battery pack were inserted through the skin and into the woman’s spinal cord. The procedure is no riskier than an epidural, Meloy said. But epidurals can cause complications such as backache in up to a fifth of women. In the second stage, a self-contained device resembling a pacemaker would be implanted beneath the skin, and switched on and off with a remote control. Meloy expected a full implant to cost around $13,000.

  He implanted wires in a woman who responded to his call for volunteers in the local media. ‘When the device was switched on, the patient reported being almost instantly aroused. She described it as “really excellent foreplay”,’ said Meloy. The woman, who had not had an orgasm for four years, wore the device for nine days and had sex with her husband on seven occasions. Meloy said she had an orgasm every time. ‘She even told me she had the first multiple orgasm of her life using the device,’ he said.

  But Sipski thought that as long as the required nerves in the body were intact, using a vibrator should work just as well. ‘My research shows that orgasm is a purely reflex response. Even the sensation associated with orgasm does not require the brain. Women with complete injuries to the spine can still experience orgasm.’

  Hopefully, the following discoveries will prove to be more popular or at least more easily accessed.

  Ecstasy over G spot therapy

  It has evaded lovers for centuries, but in 2008 the elusive and semi-mythical G spot was captured on ultrasound for the first time.

  Emmanuele Jannini at the University of L’Aquila in Italy discovered clear anatomical differences between women who claimed to have vaginal orgasms—triggered by stimulation of the front vaginal wall without any simultaneous stimulation of the clitoris—and those that didn’t. Apparently, the key is that women who orgasm during penetrative sex have a thicker area of tissue in the region between the vagina and urethra, meaning a simple scan could separate out the lucky ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’.

  Even better, Jannini found evidence that women who have this thicker tissue can be ‘taught’ to have vaginal orgasms. Ultrasound scans on 30 women uncovered G spots in just eight of them and when these women were asked if they had vaginal orgasms during sex, only five of them said yes. However, when the remaining three were shown their G spots on the scan and given advice on how to stimulate it, two of them subsequently ‘discovered’ the joy of vaginal orgasms. ‘This demonstrated, although in a small sample, the use of [vaginal ultrasound] in teaching the vaginal orgasm,’ Jannini said.

  Sadly, none of the have-nots had vaginal orgasms either before or after the scans, so they would just have to make do with the old-fashioned clitoral kind.

  Jannini went on to investigate whether hirsute women are more likely to have G spots since they have higher levels of testosterone and both the clitoris and the G spot are thought to respond to the hormone. The burning question is whether women with a small G spot can ‘grow’ it with practice. Jannini was optimistic. ‘I fully agree that the use makes the organ. I do expect an increase with frequent use.’ So perhaps the only way to make the most of your G spot, if you have one, is to get practising.

  Ultrasound listens in to love in the lab

  Sexual penetration is best from behind or from the side, claimed a unique study of the act of human copulation. The study, conducted by scientists at the University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1991, showed that those sexual positions which achieve maximum penetration by the male also result in the most climactic orgasm for the female and the best chance of fertilisation.

  The findings suggested that several traditional western sexual positions were unfulfilling to women and the least likely to result in pregnancy. ‘It’s all basically a question of the shape of the erect penis in relation to the woman’s vagina and other sexual organs,’ explained Lasse Hessel, the leader of the research team. The deeper the penetration, the more profound the resultant orgasm and hence the greater the chance of ejaculated sperm fertilising an egg.

  Hessel and his team based their conclusions on extensive observations of Danish couples making love in the laboratory, using ultrasound machines normally used to monitor the development of the foetus in pregnancy. The scans revealed the exact position and movement of the penis during intercourse.

  Hessel and his colleagues scored positions on several objective criteria, such as depth of penetration and how long it took each couple to reach orgasm, and on subjective criteria such as each partner’s rating of the intensity of their orgasms.

  The positions ranged from the most popular ‘missionary’ position to the less popular sideways or rear-entry positions. ‘The rear and sideways positions scored best in virtually all cases,’ Hessel concluded. These positions, which enabled the curve of the erect penis to match that of the female anatomy, also maximised the chance of the woman experiencing multiple orgasms.

  But not everybody was happy.

  Fertile orgasms

  Sir, I was very interested to read the article entitled ‘Ultrasound listens to love in the lab’ and would love to know more details of these experiments. The results appeared to fly in the face of research such as the Hite Report on women’s experience of sex.

  Over the past decade or so it has become recognised that women have a right to express their requirements as far as lovemaking is concerned, and that this does not usually entail just being banged into from behind with maximum penetration. It has been well established that orgasms of mammoth proportions can be produced from clitoral stimulation, without any need for penetration by a penis at all. Was there any clitoral stimulation during the experiments you quote? If not, how long did it take before these women reached orgasm, as I should think it would be longer than most men could manage.

  If a women has already reached orgasm once then maybe I can believe what the report says, but in that case there has been a crucial omission in your account. If there’s no such omission then please, tell us how it’s done.

  Elizabeth Boothman

  (18 January 1992)

  If you agree, and feel strongly that the Copenhagen researchers are misguided, there are—thankfully—still more ways to achieve orgasm. Trouble is, this one involves being watched too…

  Hot news

  In 1980, psychologists Lisa Berry and Paul Abramson at the University of California at Los Angeles hoped they had discovered a new aid for people with sexual problems. Using a thermography machine of the type used to look for the hot spots (or changes in infrared radiation) caused by tumours, they were able to help cure patients who claimed they were unable to achieve orgasm.

  Patients were encouraged to masturbate in front of a TV camera, and the flow of blood and energy to the erogenous zones showed up as changes in colour on a screen in front of them. The fact that they could see that they were turning themselves on helped them to obtain confidence in their ability to stimulate themselves successfully, and orgasm was often achieved during the first or second session—sometimes the patients claimed for the first time ever in their lives.

  Still, as we are increasingly learning, it takes all sorts…

  Safe sex

  A 1980 issue of the British Medical Journal carried an intriguing report from two surgeons, one from University College Hospital London and one from St Thomas’, also in London. They wrote on ‘Penile injuries from vacuum cleaners’—a title guaranteed to stop any contents-skimmer in his or her tracks.

  The two doctors were obviously men of the world; they introduced their account of woeful damage suffered by the male organ when inserted into a vacuum cleaner nozzle with the prefatory remark that the practice was undertaken ‘probably in search of sexual satisfaction’.

  Neil Citron and Peter Wade reported four cases of damage after attempted copulation with a machine. But far more interest
ing than the details of the damage is the fact that none of the men was exactly honest about his proclivities…

  Spanking ‘brings couples together’

  Spanking is stressful at first, but it could bring consenting couples closer together. That’s the implication of two studies conducted in 2009 of hormonal changes associated with sadomasochistic (S&M) activities including spanking, bondage and flogging.

  Brad Sagarin at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and colleagues measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol in 13 men and women at an S&M party in Arizona, before, during and after participating in activities. During S&M scenes, cortisol rose significantly in those receiving stimulation, but dropped back to normal within 40 minutes if the scene went well. There was no change in those inflicting the activity.

  At an S&M event in Colorado, testosterone was measured in 45 men and women. It increased significantly in receiving women only. Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa, Italy, said the boost may help women cope with the aggressive nature of S&M activities, or that it could be another sign of stress. In both studies, couples who said the party went well also reported increases in relationship closeness.

  It’s important to note that levels of both hormones dropped back down in couples who enjoyed the experience, Marazziti said. ‘When sexual intercourse is consensual it is not stressful—even if it is extreme sex.’ Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, added that almost any shared activity is likely to promote interpersonal closeness. ‘It doesn’t have to be tying up your partner or placing clamps on their nipples, it could be something as simple as cooking a meal together or even doing the housework as a duo,’ he said.