Diane Kelly

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is showing the world sketches of penises and vulvas. Admittedly, they’re penises and vulvas that Leonardo da Vinci drew around 1508, which makes them art instead of crotch shots. Check ‘em out at the oh-so-proper Royal Collection Trust website. Contact the author at [email protected].

This Is What a Dolphin’s Vagina Looks Like

A couple of months ago, I helped out in Patricia Brennan’s lab when she made casts of dolphin vaginas. You heard me correctly. Dolphin vaginas. Brennan is well-known among biologists for her work on sexual conflict in ducks, and on the internet for her high-speed videos of duck erection. I’ve known Brennan for years –…

What Happens to Sperm Once They’re Inside a Woman?

A sperm’s journey from vagina to egg is only 15 centimeters long, but it’s a race with attrition. There are approximately 200 million sperm in each human ejaculation, but only about 2 million sperm make it into the cervix. The rest are killed by the acidic fluids inside the vagina or lost in “flowback”—which is…

How Male Spiders Can Feel Sex Even Without a Penis

Male spiders don’t have a penis – all their sex is digital. After ejaculating onto a tiny piece of webbing, a male sucks his sperm into a chamber at the tip of one of the short limbs on his head. Once he convinces a female to accept him, he’ll push that appendage inside her genital…

Colorado Gave Poor Teens Free IUDs and Cut Unintended Pregnancies

Modern IUDs and contraceptive implants are effective, but they’re also expensive. The devices can cost several hundred dollars, and they have to be inserted by a trained physician, adding additional fees for doctor’s visits and checkups. Those financial barriers can keep low income women from taking advantage of these forms of contraception. What if the…

I Tried Some Aphrodisiacs, and Didn’t Even Get a Stupid Placebo Effect

People have ascribed sexual powers to certain foods for centuries, but there’s absolutely no scientific evidence any of them will actually give you anything beyond calories and vitamins. But what the hell? Every so often, I’ll try some out and let you know what they’re like. As you read, imagine that I take a bite…

Maria Fernanda Cardoso’seight-year quest to create The Museum of Copulatory Organs, an amazing art installation of invertebrate sexual anatomy, is told in comic book form by Andy Warner. Check it out at Popular Science. Contact the author at [email protected].

People are Poor Communicators When it Comes to Pain During Sex

Sex should be fun, but for many people pain is not. Nevertheless, sex sometimes surprises us with a side of pain. It might be fleeting–from a lack of lubrication, an unexpected muscle cramp, some chafing or pinched skin, or it could be the result of a more serious medical condition. But whether it’s from shame…

3D Scans Show How Semen Controls Sexual Behavior in Female Flies

It definitely takes two when it comes to making baby flies. Scientists have known for years that fly semen can trigger ovulation and make females lay more eggs. But no one knew exactly what those proteins did to the female reproductive tract. A new study published in PNAStakes a deep look inside fruit flies to…

TedEd has posted an excellent overview of in-vitro fertilization, summarizing how the method taps into the female reproductive cycle to harvest eggs, some techniques for getting fertilization to happen in a dish, and the options for gestating the resulting embryos. Contact the author at [email protected].

The Amazing Muscular Origami That Makes the Vagina So Stretchy

Human vaginas don’t have the fantastical loops and blind alleys of a duck vagina, but they still have some pretty amazing shape-changing powers. Here’s how they’re put together, and how that anatomy lets them grow when they need to. They certainly need to grow before they’re put to use. The average vagina is only about…

New Film Takes a Close Look at the Biology and Culture of Penises

The Atlantic just released a short clip from The Dickumentary: A Short History of the Penis, a new documentary about penises from filmmaker Sofian Khan. The Dickumentatry explores the biology and culture of the penis, and Kahn interviews more than 40 experts from 14 countries on topics ranging from penis evolution and physiology, to phallus…

We Still Don’t Know Why Men Find Ovulating Women More Attractive

Are you in a public place? Look around. Can you tell whether any of the women you see are ovulating, just by looking at them? Neither can anybody else. But several small studies have suggested that men nevertheless find women’s faces more attractive when they’re most fertile. No one knows what signals the men are…

Why Birth Control Dispensers Look the Way They Do

The first working model of the now-iconic birth control pill dispenser is in the Smithsonian’s history collection. It’s built out of clear plastic, paper, and double-sided tape, held together by a snap from a child’s toy, with slices of wooden dowel standing in for pills. It was created to solve a vexing problem. In 1961,…

The Biggest Kangaroos Evolved Long Arms to Fight Over Females

Male kangaroos and wallabies, like a lot of seemingly quiet grazing animals, get into knock-down drag-out fights over females. They obviously don’t have antlers or horns to spar with, but they’re perfectly willing to grapple rivals with their forelimbs and kick the crap out of each other with their big hind feet. Those fights have…

If you needed any more reasons to sign up for Firefly Watch, check out the stunning time lapse video of male firefly courtship displaysfilmed in the Great Smoky Mountains last year, now up at the New York Times as part of their Summer of Science. Contact the author at [email protected].

Sorry, Don’t Expect STD-Sensing Color Condoms Anytime Soon

When the TeenTech Awards announced their 2015 winners last week, news outlets far and wide swooned over the concept of color-changing condoms that detected STDs proposed by three teenaged students. The idea is brilliant as it is bizarre—but don’t expect to see these in stores anytime soon. This should not come as a surprise: The…

Here’s What’s Going on Inside a Mermaid’s Purse

Reef-dwelling catsharks wrap their fertilized eggs in leathery box-shaped cases commonly called “mermaid’s purses.” The tough, collagenous wall of the purse protects the developing young until it’s ready to hatch—anywhere from a month to a year after it’s laid, depending on its species. This short video from the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida…

Are you curious about what makes a person transgender? So are the scientists trying to understand its biological underpinnings and the best way to help people with gender dysphoria. Kate Wheeling pulls together a short list of recent research findings on the subject at Pacific Standard. Contact the author at [email protected].

The Way We Name Species Was Invented by a “Botanical Pornographer”

The Age of Exploration brought Europeans riches, a broader view of the world, and a hell of a lot of new plants and animals to describe. That was heaven for Carl Linnaeus, a young Swedish doctor with a passion for plants. Linnaeus was charming, arrogant, and absolutely certain that he could change the way naturalists…