Crying Over Spilled Semen

Why women who don't use condoms feel happier.

By:Tiffany Kary

The finding that women who do not use condoms during sex are less depressed and less likely to attempt suicide than are women who have sex with condoms and women who are not sexually active, leads one researcher to conclude that semen contains powerful-and potentially addictive-mood-altering chemicals.

Study author Gordon G. Gallup, Ph.D., a psychologist at the State University of New York in Albany, also found that women who routinely had intercourse without condoms became increasingly depressed as more time elapsed since their last sexual encounter. There was no such correlation for women whose partners regularly used condoms.

Gallup's survey of 293 college women also found that those who did not use condoms were most likely to initiate sex and to seek out new partners as soon as a relationship ended. "These women are more vulnerable to the rebound effect, which suggests that there is a chemical dependency," says Gallup.

Semen contains hormones including testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone and prostaglandins, and some of these are absorbed through the walls of the vagina and are known to elevate mood.

Gallup controlled for variables including method of contraception, frequency of sexual intercourse, as well as the women's perception of their relationship. He concedes that women who regularly have sex without condoms might share personality traits that make them less susceptible to depression. But the behavior most often associated with non-condom users is sexual risk-taking, and studies have found no correlation between high-risk sexual behavior and lower rates of depression.

Gallup's study, which he deems "the first serious attempt to investigate the effect of semen chemistry on women," titillated the public and rankled some academics upon publication in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Gallup says he has since replicated the findings with a sample of 700 women and will examine whether "semen withdrawal" places women at an increased risk for depression when they are premenstrual, menopausal or have just given birth, as many women abstain from sex during these periods.

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) -- An elephant in eastern India has sparked complaints from motorists who accuse it of blocking traffic and refusing to allow vehicles to pass unless drivers give it food, a newspaper has reported.

The Hindustan Times said Monday the elephant was scouting for food on a highway in the eastern state of Orissa, forcing motorists to roll down their windows and get out of the car.

"The tusker then inserts its trunk inside the vehicle and sniffs for food," local resident Prabodh Mohanty, who has come across the elephant twice, was quoted as saying.

"If you are carrying vegetables and banana inside your vehicle, then it will gulp them and allow you to go."

If a commuter does not wind down his window or resists opening the vehicle door, the elephant stands in front of the car until the driver allows him to carry out his routine inspection.

Forestry officials told the newspaper that the elephant is old and is therefore looking for easy food.

"So far, it has not harmed anybody," said Sirish Mohanty, a forest ranger working in the state.

"We are telling commuters regularly not to tease the elephant. But if people don't heed to our advice and harass the tusker, then it can retaliate."

Elephants are a protected and endangered species in India, which has nearly half of the world's 60,000 Asian elephants.

But conservationists say its population has fallen rapidly in recent years because of loss of habitat as a result of human encroachment into forest areas.

Cleanliness caused death of 'Dettol Man'

By Nigel Bunyan
Last Updated: 2:13am BST 29/05/2007

A recluse died because his phobia for cleanliness drove him to using large quantities of antiseptic.

Jacques Niemand, 42, became so well known for his obsession that children living near his flat in Didsbury, Manchester, nicknamed him the ''Dettol Man''.

A pathologist told an inquest in the city that it was impossible to tell whether Mr Niemand had resorted to drinking the fluid or else had gradually been overpowered by its poisonous fumes.

The net result was that he had an inadequate supply of oxygen to his vital organs.

The inquest heard he habitually placed buckets of Dettol around his flat. Bottles of the product littered the rooms, while a further 100 containers had been packed inside a suitcase.

Mr Niemand's sister, Ruth Bain, said her brother had suffered from an obsessive cleaning disorder for a number of years. He had not seen his GP since 1992 because he feared the prospect of being detained under the Mental Health Act. "He didn't want any help and was scared of receiving it," she said.

Mrs Bain said she tended to stay away from the flat because she found the smell of antiseptic overpowering.

Several police officers who searched the premises last July, in the days after Mr Niemand's death, had to go off sick with aches and pains.

A pathologist, Dr Lorna McWilliam, said it was difficult to say whether his exposure to Dettol had been through ingestion or inhalation.

She added: "I cannot be sure his death arose through using an excessive amount at one time, but I suspect there must be an element of that."

The Manchester coroner, Leonard Gorodkin, recorded a verdict of misadventure.

He described it as "a most unusual kind of death", and added: "We do not know if death occurred quickly or over a period of time".

Mr Gorodkin disagreed with Mrs Bain's fear that her brother had wanted to end his life.

"If that had been the case the level of chlorate in his body would have been much higher," he said.

He suggested that since Mr Niemand knew workmen were due to begin improvements to his flat on the day he died he may have wanted to make himself particularly clean.

Last night the makers of Dettol, Reckitt Benkiser, were unavailable for comment.

Man Clad in Underwear Pins Leopard

By ARON HELLER
The Associated Press
Monday, May 28, 2007; 10:45 PM

JERUSALEM -- A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.

"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking, I just acted."

Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.

Shapira said it was probably food that lured the big cat. Leopards living near humans are usually too old to hunt in the wild and resort to chasing down domestic dogs and cats for food, he added.

Du Mosch's pet cat was in the bed with him at the time, along with his young daughter who had been frightened by a mosquito in her own room.

Shapira said the leopard was very weak when park rangers arrived at Du Mosch's home after the surprise late-night visit. He said nature officials would likely release it back into the wild.

Du Mosch said he probably would not have been able to control the big cat were it in better health. As a nature guide, he said, he was familiar with animals and did his best to hold down the leopard without harming it. He said he took it all in stride, "but the kids were excited."