Vandal Science

The 2006 Porsche 911 increases a man's testosterone levels. Image from www.cars.com.

While perusing the headlines on AOL this morning - something which I am a bit ashamed to say I do on a regular basis - I noticed an interesting trend. On a “news” site that habitually features mostly irrelevant, celebrity gossip and poorly commented political features, there were actually three science stories!

Ladies and Gents, AOL has gone geek!

The first post was the most interesting. It was a commentary from an AOL Autos Correspondent named Diego Rodriguez on a recent research report from Gad Saad and John Vongas of Concordia University. The duo decided to see if merely owning a chic car affected a man’s biology as well as if showing it off in front of people made a difference.

According to the study, merely driving a sporty car (a 2006 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet) boosts a man’s testosterone levels. More surprisingly, driving on a deserted highway rose them more than showing off in front of crowded city streets. The research goes to show that there is something hardwired in humans related to owning the biggest, baddest something and it isn’t all just pop culture and advertising.

Or as Mr. Rodriguez puts it, “By driving a Porsche they become more potent competitors in the game of life, presumably upping their ability to continue to do whatever they were doing to enable them to procure a Porsche in the first place. One might argue that, rather than costing more because marketers tell us they’re worth it, Porsches are expensive because our genes value them so highly.”

The second piece relates to new genetically modified tomatoes in India that possess a longer shelf life by a month. Critics argue whether or not the nutrition level stays the same in that same time period, and others debate whether or not genetically modified produce will ever become widely accepted in America.

The final story tells of a research project that has located an “obsessive-compulsive gene” in canines. For a decade, the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University collected blood samples from Dobermans that exhibited compulsive behavior, like blanket-sucking, as well as from unaffected, healthy Dobermans.

After doing the blood work, researchers found that those blanket-sucking fiends were more likely to to express a CDH2 gene. And because the same gene appears in the human genome, the next step in the research is to find whether or not this gene might also cause similar psychological diseases in humans.