The past year brought us more shocking insights into the world of sex: from the secret lives of Komodo dragons to new hope for erectile dysfunction, from progress in the long-standing puzzle about human/Neanderthal sex to scientific confirmation of the tricks of pickup artists.
Have you been paying attention? Here's our second annual sex-and-science quiz to test your Carnal Knowledge.
CLICK THE LETTER-BUTTONS TO SELECT YOUR ANSWERS
1. In the course of some scientific investigations, scientists recently found they could make heterosexual male snakes attempt to have gay sex. How did they do it?
They sprayed captive snakes with a recently declassified "gay bomb," designed by the Department of Defense to induce homosexual behavior in enemy troops.
They isolated a snake pheromone from female snakes and tested its potency by dabbing it on males.
For six months they fed the snakes soy products, including tofu and soy milk, known to cause feminization.
2. The recent census found that in the U.S., only 49 percent of women were living with spouses, compared with 53 percent of men. Why do single women outnumber single men?
A recent study blamed the long-running HBO hit Sex and the City for discouraging women from marrying.
A group of women living in Arizona have taken to marrying four or more husbands, thus leaving too few men for the rest of us.
Men die earlier than women, often from accidents, homicide, suicide and heart attacks.
3. Tests show that women prefer the scent of a man with potentially compatible immune genes known as the MHC complex. Which of the following interferes with women's scent preferences?
More than 10 hours a week of cell-phone use.
Oral contraceptives.
Money. It smells good on any man.
Men wearing too-short shorts and committing other serious fashion don'ts.
4. Which of these constituted the biggest male/female differences seen on a University of Wisconsin survey?
Women talk more than twice as much as men.
Men talk as much as women, but women are right twice as often as men.
Men can throw a baseball farther, masturbate more, and are more likely to desire sex with a total stranger.
5. At the Chester Zoo in England, a Komodo dragon named Flora made the news last year for what?
Laying eggs that hatched into baby Komodo dragons, even though she was still a virgin.
Biting then-Prime Minister Tony Blair while he received a special "behind-the-scenes" zoo tour.
Escaping her enclosure for an entire night, during which she attempted to mate with several crocodiles and an alligator named Dirty Harry.
6. Which of these effects of eating too much soy was substantiated scientifically?
