This is an interview with anthropologist Helen E. Fisher, PhD, a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University.
She has conducted extensive research on the evolution and future of human sex, love and marriage and gender differences in the brain and behavior.




Q: In a nutshell, why do we fall in love?
Dr. Fisher: I’ve come to think that romantic love is one of three basic brain systems that evolved for reproduction. Each evolved for a reason: The sex drive evolved to get you out there looking for partners. Romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your energy on just one person at a time, conserving time and energy. And attachment, the feeling of security you can feel with a long-term partner, evolved to help you stay together long enough to raise kids.

Q: Why does being in love feel so good?
Dr. Fisher: Because some of the most powerful brain circuits for pleasure are triggered. The main chemical involved is dopamine, which produces feelings of euphoria, energy, sleeplessness, and focused attention on your beloved. Biologically speaking, you’re experiencing something similar to a cocaine high.

Q: Is there such a thing as love at first sight?
Dr. Fisher: Yes. It probably happens to men more than women because men are more visual, but I think we can all remember times when we felt an instant attraction to someone we barely knew. It has a practical purpose: In the animal kingdom you can’t spend three months discussing your résumé; you need to feel instant sparks to start the breeding process.

Q: Is falling in love all about timing?
Dr. Fisher: Timing is important. The perfect partner can sit right next to you at a party, and you might not notice him or her if you’re too busy at work, enmeshed in another relationship, or otherwise preoccupied. But if you’ve just moved to a new city, recovered from an unsatisfying love affair, begun to make enough money to raise a family, are suffering through a difficult experience, or have a good deal of spare time, you are ripe to fall in love.

Q: Is there anything we can do to make someone fall for us (or make ourselves fall for someone)?
Dr. Fisher: Do new things together. Novelty and excitement all drive up the activity of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain. These neurotransmitters are associated with energy, elation, focused attention and motivation—central traits of romantic love. So as you do novel things, these chemicals hop into action and may just push you over the threshold to fall in love.

Q: Is there anything you can do to make yourself stop loving someone?
Dr. Fisher: Some people, especially women, tend to talk about a failed relationship so much that they re-traumatize themselves. Instead, get rid of your ex’s cards and letters. Don’t call or write. Get some sunshine and exercise, because both can change brain chemistry.

Q: What’s the difference between love and lust?
Dr. Fisher: Lust generally dissipates after having sex and returns hours or days later. You can feel it for several people at the same time and not necessarily feel jealous. But when you’re in love, you are very possessive. And romantic feelings don’t dissipate after having sex; in fact, they can intensify.

Q: Does having sex make people fall in love?
Dr. Fisher: Having sex can trigger love—probably because after orgasm, there’s a peak in dopamine activity. So watch out if you casually bed down with someone—you might unintentionally fall for them.

Q: Do feelings of love die over time, and is there any way to bring them back?
Dr. Fisher: The first intense period of love can last one to three years. After that, these feelings subside. But if two people are compatible, there are many ways to renew a flagging partnership. Novelty can spur romance; sex can trigger it, too. Do some of the things that you used to when you were first dating.

Q: How important a role does chemistry play in love?
Dr. Fisher: I believe that when the chemistry of one personality meshes well with the chemistry of another, it will continually combust throughout the relationship—keeping both partners together and happy during dry spells when feelings of romance are low.

Q: How do men and women experience love differently?
Dr. Fisher: Men fall in love faster than women do. Women take longer because they have to create a “memory trail” of their mate’s behaviors. She has to remember what he promised, what he’s done for the partnership, and what he failed to do.

Q: What do men look for in a mate?
Dr. Fisher: Men are more likely to choose women who display signs of youth and beauty—the first time that they marry, men around the world tend to marry women who are three years younger than themselves. Men are also attracted to women who “need” them. Men want to be helpful.

Q: What do women look for in a mate?
Dr. Fisher: Women are attracted to partners with money, status, and ambition—one study found that American women seek partners who offered financial security twice as frequently as men do. If men look for “sex objects,” then women look for “success objects.”

Q: Can someone truly love more than one person?
Dr. Fisher: No. I think you can feel lust for more than one person, and feelings of attachment for more than one person. But not love. As the Indian aphorism goes, “The lane of love is narrow; there is room for only one.”

Q: What’s the biggest mistake people make when it comes to love?
Dr. Fisher: Some people fall in love before they really know their partner and marry in this state of romantic rapture. They should probably wait until that intense early phase wears off so they can see the flaws in the relationship before they dive in for good.

Q: Having reviewed so much scientific data on love,what would be the most important thing we’ve learned?
Dr. Fisher: To me, the most important thing that scientists have learned is that romantic love was not invented by the troubadours in 11th century France. We have now found love poetry from the ancient Sumerians written some 4,000 years ago, as well as evidence of romantic love in over 150 societies. It’s given me a deep sense of connection to people everywhere: We’re all alike in some basic and beautiful ways.

This is what claims a recently released documentary, called OutFOXed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.

The name, OutFOXed, alludes to the Fox News Channel (FNC) which in the United States is rated as the cable news network with the largest number of regular viewers.


The documentary demonstrates the conservative bias that's handed down by Fox's owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch. It gathers interviews from media watchdogs and former Fox employees, but their overwhelming condemnation of Fox's skewed news practices isn't half as effective as footage taken from Fox itself:
- an appalling montage of Bill O'Reilly telling guests to "shut up"
- repeated efforts to paint Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry as weak and waffling, while President Bush is captured in respectful, reverent images
- management memos dictating language, subject matter, and point of view.

OutFOXed examines how media empires owned by Murdoch have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news: As ever-enlarging corporations take control of the public's right to know, democracy is set at danger.

In the case of FNC it's one single person that opines for the public. Murdoch's entire audience is estimated at 4'700'000'000 people which represent three quarters of the entire world's population. What information he decides to broadcast greatly influences U.S. Americans' votes. We all know what a presidential election can cause; a war in Iraq, no action on global warming. Just to mention a couple.



The result of this documentary is an intense examination of Fox News and the lie inherent in its favorite motto: "Fair and Balanced."

If you are up-to-date with trends and fads in the virtual world you most certainly know facebook.com -- if you don't, well then, I guess every now and then, pigs can fly?

Either way, for roughly two years a German copy of facebook, called studivz, has attracted numerous German and Swiss students to sign up. The site was later translated into French, Italian, Polish, and Spanish.

Now have a look at how similar facebook and studivz are:


It is obvious that studivz is one-to-one a replication of facebook. I wonder why the founders of facebook do not care?

Early this year, studivz was acquired for US$ 112m.

a nu post is here
artistic it is supposed 2 be
every now and then
for a change

many nu ideas and thoughts
occured 2 me over the weekend
entrenched in my apt
for a rebound

i have 2 people i'd love 2 tell
2 my beautiful neighbor girl
who just won't spell
2 my rogue room mate
specializing in concern

for months and weeks
i have been wondering
if or not she is
the one i loved so much 2 be

an entire virtual world got to know
my see-saw - to and fro
cds, a letter, stuff straight from the heart
2 follow no reaction of hers

instead of depression
questions came about
of why a human can
not bother 2 react at all

and still
special i feel
when i think
i see her

and then
my room mate
about to leave
no question there

... true American television.

Ruby Wax meets Jerry Springer and provides a look behind the scenes of The Jerry Springer Show.

To my astonishment, a couple of bloggers have written in and asked how they can help since my post about my room mate's illegal activities. Your sympathy has flattered me and made me feel comfortable again. Comfortable to know that others feel the same way; that others can understand what it's like for me.

I have felt very much at ease these last days. In fact, the issue with my room mate gives me comfort. He makes me feel in control; he himself put me in the driver's seat -- as they say. I never intended to be, but it just kind of happened. What's more, I never would have imagined me speaking in such a 'nasty' yet strategically thinking tone. But it occurs to me I have to. Sometimes you need to take preemptive action in order for yourself not to get into trouble.

Currently, I'm sort of rolling the dice. Is there a chance he might ever put the blame on me for his illegal, criminal, and chargeable activities? Will nobody ever find out and try to haunt him down? I simply do not know. Not yet do I know.

Clearly, numbers 2 and 4 in my list of choices have become unlikely for me to pay any further attention. First of all, I do not want to live in fear. This seems an unwise alternative. And second, to blackmail him would make me no better than him; it's illegal, it's unwise, and it's simply not worth it.

So, what about the three monkeys or justice? From a reliable source, I know that I do not commit any kind of crime simply by knowing what is going on. Additionally, clear evidence has been collected that leaves no doubt that I was not involved in his offense.

But then again, my room mate has put me under pressure lately. He seems very frightened and appears to regret what he did, yet at the same time he does not stop what he does. He's repeatedly asked me whether I told someone what he's done, whether anybody else knew. Why does he care? Why suddenly?

For now, I need not take any decision. I simply wonder what thoughts and feelings are going on behin his words. If I were him, I'd cleary try to sympathize with me so that I would never want to do any harm to him (doesn't this seem obvious?) Not with mere words, but by actions. By doing things that he knows (and in fact he does know me very well) I will love and enjoy. However, it must be hard for him to presume what it would take; what he needed to do; what I wanted him to do; what would finally put this question to rest.

It has been a while since my last post on this blog. This is because I have been busy with other interests lately, such as setting up two other web sites, starting my graduation paper, college, and many others.

At the same time, this 'pause of blogging' allowed me to win time. My room mate (who is said to abuse any personal information for blackmailig other people) found out the url of this blog. Certainly, I would not like him to diffuse cherry-picked information of it; and I am unsure whether to believe his promise that he won't pass around the url.

This is not what I wanted. Blogging only makes sense to me if I need not fear any disclosure of my most personal thougths and feelings. The reason for me to blog is to put my thoughts into order and to get feed-back from people who understand them. Certainly, I do not want to run the risk of being blackmailed, defamed, or ... We all have thoughts and feelings that we don't want to share with everybody, right?

But then, things with my room mate suddenly changed a short while ago. There has been an issue with him that allows me to feel at ease; in the very meaning of it. Wonder why?

My room mate is a boarderline person. Not so much in the psychiatric meaning of it, but most certainly in the eye of the law. Yes folks, my dear friend who's lived with me for more than three years is involved in illegal activites on the web. Now, what does this mean for me? Several options for me arise from the fact:

#1: Do what the three wise monkeys would: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
#2: Fear. Fear all. Fear that I will be made responsible for this.
#3: Become active and bring justice into his life
#4: Blackmail him. Either on a fixed or on a percentage basis. Monthly. In cash.

The list of choices that he implicitely presents me with is stupendous. I need not fear his 'blabbing out' my blog. Oh no.

Somehow this all reminds me of Tina Turner's song "better be good to me" from the mid-70's -- anybody remember?

May the posting and commenting continue!