What’s Science Got to Do With Love?

Valentine’s Day, StarTalk style: Celebrate the science of love, sex, relationships, and more in this “Best of” episode featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, sex columnist Dan Savage, biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, bestselling science author Mary Roach, Kristen Schaal, and Chuck Nice. (Warning: Adult Content.) NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/whats-science-got-to-do-with-love/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. This week is a special mashup edition. We pulled together some of our favorite moments from various episodes about the science of sex and love. You'll hear clips from my interview with Dan Savage and Mary Roach, and you'll hear from comedians Kristen Schaal and Chuck Nice, and from our go-to-love expert, Dr. Helen Fisher. So, without any further delay, in the words of the Beastie Boys, "Let's get busy."

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, I was feeling that one.

• 0:52Chuck Nice?

  I love it. I see you feeling it.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, turning myself on. I don't know. That's just, sometimes you feel the universe flowing through you.

• 1:00Chuck Nice?

  Right on. You know, that's when you're a Jedi, that happens.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, welcome back.

• 1:08Chuck Nice?

  It's always good to be here, Neil.

• 1:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So tonight, we're gonna be talking about sex.

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And relationships.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and dating.

• 1:19Chuck Nice?

  I liked the first part of that.

• 1:22Chuck Nice?

  The other two I can do without, but the first part is awesome.

• 1:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know you, you know, you're a man, I know you, you, you have some expertise, but it's not the kind of expertise I'm looking for in this.

• 1:31Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we gotta bring some extra, extra armament in on this conversation. Professor Helen Fisher, welcome to StarTalk. Thank you. Delighted to be here. Yes.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, you are a specialist at, what is the academic specialty that describes you? I'm a biological anthropologist, but I... That's 10 syllables. Biological anthropology. Exactly. Evolution, evolution of love. Yeah, so we're featuring today my interview with Dan Savage, who is like the online expert on love and relationships.

• 2:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And everything that go with it. And, you know, of course, we have a changing face of relationships today.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it used to be, I was thinking, it used to be hang out a bar, but people still do that.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the internet has changed all of this, and Tinder.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, these are very old. In fact, we're moving forward to the kinds of relationships we had a million years ago.

• 2:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. We're actually setting about ten.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, I just mentioned Tinder, which operates on a smartphone, and your next line is, "We've had this since cavemen."

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, what do you do on Tinder?

• 2:35Chuck Nice?

  And you swipe cave walls back in the day. First, they would draw it, and then they would swipe it.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, what they do, they swipe the actual person.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you, so, it's old, it's just a new method, you're saying?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely.

• 2:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's good to know. And what we found, and you've been at this for 30 years?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little more.

• 2:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little more than 30?

• 2:55Chuck Nice?

  Job or sex?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Both.

• 2:58Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Dan Savage, you know, this resume is great, because he puts his last name in all the names of stuff.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so he's got a column called Savage Love.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you know, how could you not read that, right? And what's, and he's got the host of the Savage Love Cast.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, you gotta say that. The Savage?

• 3:17Chuck Nice?

  Love Cast.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, can I, go as deep as you can.

• 3:22Chuck Nice?

  Love Cast.

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love Cast.

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Dan is, he's like the go-to man for people who are having troubles in their relationships.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Want some advice in modern times. So let's look at my interview with Dan Savage, and we'll just find out how do you become an expert sex columnist. Let's check it out.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  It was an accident. It's the kind of job you really can't run out looking for. You can't go to any university and get a degree in advice columning. I met somebody who was starting a newspaper, and I said, "Oh, you should have an advice column, because everybody reads them. You see that Q and A format, you have to read it."

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who, who was that person?

• 4:01Speaker 03

  Tim Keck, who was the...

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why do I know that name?

• 4:03Speaker 03

  He was the founder of The Onion.

• 4:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  And so at first, it was just a joke. I was gonna... Because I was a gay guy and I was gonna write this advice column about straight sex for straight people. And the joke was, I was gonna treat straight people and straight sex with the same contempt and revulsion that straight advice columnists like Ann Landers had always treated gay people and gay sex with.

• 4:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That would be hilarious.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  It was hilarious, and straight people loved it. Because it was a new experience for them to be treated that way. And I just started getting tons-

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As the weird one.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  As the weird ones. And I started getting tons of letters with real questions in them, and my fake joke, gonna do this for six months or your advice column, turned into, I've been doing it for 24 years, real advice column.

• 4:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you feel qualified, this question's not about whether you're academically qualified, but just whether you're culturally qualified, to advise on any combination of these gender permutations, as we would say in mathematics?

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Well, the only qualification you need to give your advice is some idiot was fool enough to ask you for it.

• 5:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dan Savage.

• 5:05Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that's very cool.

• 5:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you catch the fact that I was not in shirt and tie in that interview?

• 5:09Chuck Nice?

  I was going to say that I really, really like the relaxed Neil in that.

• 5:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I stripped down to my t-shirt on that one.

• 5:15Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I can hang with the man.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  Okay, right on. You're cool. That was very gay of you, Neil.

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 5:23Chuck Nice?

  By the way, let me just-

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

• 5:25Chuck Nice?

  No, I was gonna say, yeah. Let me go in record and say that that is my fantasy of my gay boyfriend.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that right?

• 5:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, if I had a gay boyfriend, that would be like, you know what I mean, he's like, good-looking and smart, and, you know what I mean, and he's funny, and, you know, like, that would be the guy.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're talking here, yeah.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  True confessions, you heard it here. So, of course, relationships and advice columns is all, somewhere you part the curtains, there's typically the search for love.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In there. So, you're an academic, have you been able to define love?

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, you have.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I think we've evolved three distinctly different brain systems for mating and reproduction. One is the sex drive, second one is feelings of intense romantic love, and the third is feelings of deep attachment. And I think all different forms of love are, you know, all kinds of different permutations, you like that word, combinations of, of these three basic brain systems operating in all Kinds of ways to.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that allows you to explain a lot of behavior that people exhibit. Yeah. Falling in and out of love.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  But what I study is I really study romantic love, the second of those three things. And there's a very specific things that happen. The first thing that happens when you fall madly in love is a person takes on what I call special meaning. And then you focus on them. You can list what you don't like about them, but you just switch that aside and then focus on what you do.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  OK, so do you now, I my records show here that you you're like a an advisor for match.com.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  I'm chief scientific advisor to.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chief scientific advisor. Whoa.

• 6:51Chuck Nice?

  Yo, that's hot. That's hot.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chief scientific advisor.

• 6:55Chuck Nice?

  I gotta tell you, right now, I just got a little more attracted to you.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  And that works for me.

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey, get a room, you know.

• 7:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get a room. So so what's going on in the mind? Of a one night stand.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Of a one night stand?

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are they equally as.

• 7:16Chuck Nice?

  The problem with that is is not going on in the mind.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the problem.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  First of all, it's, well, you can all kinds of people. Over one third of Americans have had a one night. Actually, almost 60% have had a one night stand. But what's interesting about one night stands, over 30% turned into a long term partnership.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's exactly how.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  There's brain circuitry for why. So basically casual sex is not casual unless you're so drunk you don't remember it. It's not casual.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not casual because I had to ask Dan that because people are asking him this all the time. And he he's in a long term marriage.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That began as a one night stand.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  A lot of people have. I mean, as I say, over 30% of people have had a one night stand turned into a long term relationship.

• 8:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out what he's he's going to tell us about one night stand.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  I think that happens a lot more often than we know because people who meet.

• 8:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because the one night stand has such a stigma.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Right, people who have sleazy meetings, they don't tell their kids about it. If your parents met in rehab, if your parents met in a sex club or a dungeon somewhere. They're not.

• 8:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or the backseat of a 57 Chevy.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  They're not going to tell you. I actually wrote a series of columns. This is how long I've been doing my advice column. While Ann Landers was writing hers, she wrote a column, a bunch of columns where she invited her readers to share their how they met stories. And they were all these meet cute stories. I danced with this boy at a USO, danced during the war. And then we wrote letters to each other all through the war. Then we met.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a generation who are now full up with those.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  But they were all like so innocent, all of her stories. And I was just thinking about the people I knew who were in successful, loving, long-term relationships, many of which had really not innocent starts. Who met, who had one-night stands like Terry and I did, who met in rehab, who, you know, had a drunken three-way and then fell in love with the guest at the three-way, the third, the spare.

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The spare.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  And those aren't the stories you're gonna tell your grandparents or your kids.

• 9:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that never gets out. No, no, no.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  So we have this distorted view of how a decent, loving relationship must start. And then people do this thing.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, wait, I have to interrupt. You made such an important point there. Because if we give the view of love and romance that we want to be true, and that's what percolates, then we establish culture and social mores based on that. So that if anyone is different from it, you get oxytocin.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Or...

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's tragic, actually.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  It is tragic, but it's actually not, I think, the most damaging aspect of this sort of cultural belief that no decent relationship can have a sleazy start. Because people will discount people as potential partners that they had a sleazy meeting with. They will say, you know, I might date this person. This might have been someone I would date, but look at what they did. Like, I couldn't date this person. We had a one-night stand. And no decent relationship can grow from a one-night stand. So I can't date this person. And no, decent relationships grow all the time from one-night stands.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely, they do. For good biological reasons, too. Yeah. I mean, any stimulation of the genitals drives up the dopamine system and can, you can fall, push you over the threshold into falling in love. And then with orgasm, there's a real flood of oxytocin, giving you feelings of deep attachment. So...

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sex is a drug. Is what you just said.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Say that again.

• 10:33Chuck Nice?

  Drug is what you just said.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Sex is a drug, definitely a huge drug. But people, but it's even, an even bigger drug is romantic love. People don't, you know, you ask somebody to casually go to bed with you and they say, no, thank you. You don't kill yourself, you know, around the world.

• 10:45Chuck Nice?

  Speak for yourself.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Most crimes of passions aren't over that. I'm sorry for you.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but what about, okay, you, okay, you, you said something very important. That this is a natural biochemical phenomenon going on within us all.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is biology.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then why does the one night stand carry a stigma?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  That's a really good question.

• 11:09Chuck Nice?

  I'll tell you mine.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Okay, good.

• 11:10Chuck Nice?

  Because part of it is what he said, which was, it doesn't make for a great story later on when you're with that person. That's why even if you did meet, and when I stand, you will change the story. You will not say to your children, you know, when I met your mother, that ball gag looked so great in her mouth. And the way she used that riding crop was amazing.

• 11:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 11:29Chuck Nice?

  And on top of that, she gave me a discount. Like, that's not gonna happen.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  I can't imagine that's gonna be the start of a good relationship, to be perfectly honest with you.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  But I, I think that, you know, I mean, for, for thousands of years, marriage was the beginning of a relationship. Now it's the finale. We are really doing what I call fast sex and slow love.

• 11:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So love, we speak, speak of it as being something that you, you, you're implying, all these urges, imply that you know much more about the person than some people would claim. Who would assert that they were in love, for example, on first sight?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's very easy to explain love at first sight, actually.

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, so you can explain everything?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Well, not everything, but I can do that one.

• 12:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when we come back, let's find out more about love at first sight on Star Trek.

• 12:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk. Chuck Nice. Hey, hey. Chuck in the house. In the house. And we've got Helen Fisher, an expert on sex, because tonight we're talking about sex.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  And love.

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And love, and relationships. And we're featuring my interview with Dan Savage, and he's an author of Savage Love, the Vice column. Only the best kind.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, so, you know, I'm curious about something. Some of the most famous love stories would include, I don't know, Cleopatra and and there's beauty that might attract the ma- if it's female beauty, heterosexual female beauty, we think of the beauty of Helen of Troy.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she wants the thousand ships.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  You know, looks do count. I mean, there's breaking points all through a relationship, and the very first thing you do is you look at them. This is why Tinder is popular.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why Tinder is popular.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 13:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love at first sight.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it love at first sight, or is it lust at first sight?

• 13:47Speaker 02

  It depends, you know.

• 13:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it doesn't. It's lust at first sight. It is lust.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  It's both. I mean, it's very often both. I mean, you can trigger the brain circuitry for romantic love, and then everything about a person is sexy, from that moment on. And then you can go to bed with somebody and trigger the brain circuitry for romantic love. So, they can be very well connected.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's got the wire and going, going.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Unless you're so drunk you can't remember it, of course, you know.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  It, you know, sex does mean something.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I asked Dan Savage, is love at first sight really possible? Because he's got data from people trying to ask him about it. Let's check it out.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Love at first sight is one of those phenomena that is, some people believe it's true because

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because it would happen to them.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  It jives with their personal experience. But- It's a logical fallacy because you may have had the exact same initial feelings about somebody else and it didn't work out. And so you don't say love at first sight isn't true because when I felt love at first sight feelings for this person and it didn't work out, it disproved the theory. But I felt it for this person and it worked out, so it proves the theory.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they remember the hits and not the misses is what it is.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  And you could be with somebody where you had this like love at first sight feeling, be with them all your life and you can say, oh, love at first sight is a true thing and it actually happens. But somebody else may have had the exact same feelings for another person who turned out to be a jerk and it didn't work out. You may have had the exact same feelings for somebody before you had your love at first sight experience.

• 15:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love at first sight, hate at second sight.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, love at first sight, hate in divorce court 15 years later.

• 15:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he's looking at all the data.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Not all of the data.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, no, but if you had love at first sight and you ended up divorced, then it's not really, it's the true love that people look for from fairy tales.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Ah, true love, that's a different issue.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  But the bottom line is, it's very easy to explain love at first sight. The brain circuitry for romantic love is like the fear system. You can be scared instantly and you can fall in love instantly. And we really want to get to know somebody before we ever tie the knot. And so first things we get right in bed with them, you learn a lot between the sheets about somebody. And then you move into the friends with benefits.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  I imagine that would work. So basically, you know, you get them into bed right off the bat and/or on the pool table, whatever, and then you get, you know, the friends with benefits and then you live together. And even with the marriage, one-third of Americans want to have some sort of prenup agreement. So, you know, but because we are marrying so much later and really knowing the person before we do marry them, I think, I'm very optimistic about the future that more and more relationships will retain, will remain.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is the secret to a successful relationship is what you're suggesting?

• 16:34Speaker 02

  I don't want to advise people to do it on a pool table in order to have a 50-year marriage.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said the part about getting to know each other. Let's find out with Dan Savage, what his recipe might be for a successful relationship. Check it out.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  I think being good to each other, taking care of each other, and not taking each other for granted. And to try to keep things in perspective. You know, as a relationship advisor, what I'm constantly noticing is people who are obsessed with the things in their relationships that annoy them. And they can be very articulate and long-winded about their partner's faults or the things that they're dissatisfied with in the relationship. And nowhere near as long-winded or articulate about their partner's strengths or what's good about the relationship. I call it paying the price of admission in a long-term relationship. There are things about your partner, there are edges you're gonna wanna stand off. There are things that, as you come together, you're gonna carve a groove in each other so you fit. There's no "the one."

• 17:34Speaker 03

  There's no perfect person for you. There's maybe a .64 and you round that guy up to one or that woman up to one or that some other point along the gender spectrum up to one. You make them the one. That's an act of will that you did for them, and they're doing the same for you. To make that happen...

• 17:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's an under-recognized need in a relationship. Because people are saying, "I want the person who I will then never have to change." Right. And in practice, no. If such a person exists, you're not finding them because there's 7 billion people in them.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  That person doesn't exist.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even inside of 7 billion?

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Even in 7 billion, that person... Even if we get to 7 trillion, that person does not exist.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  People grind against each other. People annoy each other.

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the inter... In math, we might call that the intersection function. That function will, in any healthy relationship, need to be continually adjusted and modified.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Right. But my point is, with the price of admission, is you sand off the edges you can sand off so you fit together more comfortably. But then you have to identify those things that, no matter how much you bitch and complain about them, will never change. And you have to ask yourself, is this person worth paying the price of admission to put up with that? And not put up with it and complain about it and guilt them about it all the time, put up with it and shut up about it.

• 18:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you have to weigh the rest of the relationship and say that it's worth it.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back with StarTalk Radio and I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm here with Christine Shaw.

• 19:18Speaker 04

  Such a pleasure to be here Neil.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is, I love having you on this. And I got you here because, not just because you're funny and I like having you around, but on this show of the science of sex, who knew that you had written a book?

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex.

• 19:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know a lot about sex.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that makes you an expert.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  It does.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we also have clips from my interview with Mary Roach, who wrote the book Bonk.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, she's into one syllable, one word book titles, and she studied the science of sex. In this next clip, she mentioned some surprising facts about erections.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Oh yes.

• 19:56Mary Roach?

  The only other erectile tissue in the human body is in the nose. When you have a cold, you basically have a nose boner. You didn't know that?

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did not know that.

• 20:04Mary Roach?

  Okay. The nipples, that's a different erection system. That's muscles squeezing, that's not erectile tissue, that's a muscular erection of...

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're saying it's not filling with blood? Isn't that what it is?

• 20:14Mary Roach?

  Not in the nipples, no. The nipples are little muscles squeezing it upright.

• 20:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that!

• 20:19Mary Roach?

  The nose, it's that spongy erectile tissue that's...

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spongey that fills with blood. So people who have enlarged nose from the flu, they have nose erections, that's what you're telling me?

• 20:26Mary Roach?

  Exactly.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:28Mary Roach?

  And, okay, here's another good...

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the nipples is just muscles?

• 20:30Mary Roach?

  Muscles, yeah, like contracting, to squeeze it and push it up.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, why are they contracting? What value is that to...

• 20:37Mary Roach?

  Oh, I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I don't know why when it's cold they do that.

• 20:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it's cold or aroused, which is two really different things, right?

• 20:44Mary Roach?

  Yes, exactly. Well, I would imagine it has to do with suckling, with breastfeeding, like it helps the child to find the nipple. If, you know, if you're manipulating the nipple and then it gets erect, then it's easier to find.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's easiest for your sexual arousal system to be brought to bear when you're breastfeeding, so that you can feed the child and want to do so again and again.

• 21:04Mary Roach?

  Right.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise the child dies.

• 21:05Mary Roach?

  Right, so that makes sense.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so your sexual arousal system is a really convenient system to tap when you're breastfeeding.

• 21:10Mary Roach?

  When you're talking about something, life and death, passing on your genetic material, yeah.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, okay.

• 21:16Mary Roach?

  It's a handy reinforcing system.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So give me another top tidbit.

• 21:18Mary Roach?

  Okay, here's one. Women have nocturnal erections in the same sort of cycle as men. Little tiny, little clitoral erections. And that somebody wired up a fairly large clitoris with a strain gauge, figured it out, brought them into a lab...

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, here's one. Tell me the difference between an erection that's sexually aroused and one that's just there, that has no correspondence with sex at all.

• 21:40Mary Roach?

  Ones that's just there?

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Is it possible for the body to just do it without stimulus? Because it's just, you know, 3:00 in the afternoon.

• 21:46Mary Roach?

  Well, like a nocturnal erection?

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I don't know. Yeah, maybe.

• 21:49Mary Roach?

  That's one theory that I've heard, is it's just sort of the body making sure everything still works. It doesn't really, like, just, you know, the same way that you turn on a 1964 Mustang every 6 months to make sure it's, like, just turn it on and make sure everything...

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pulmonary system, check.

• 22:02Mary Roach?

  Check.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sexual arousal?

• 22:03Speaker 04

  Bring it.

• 22:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Check.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you know this about your nipples?

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I figured. Because I think in caveman times, too, when the ladies were out and they were cold, maybe they could get a guy to give them a hug.

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 22:20Speaker 04

  Before they invented fire.

• 22:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In that last clip, we talked about surprising facts about erections. You talk much about erections in your book?

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, definitely. Especially about erectile dysfunction.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? What do you say about it?

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Um, just that you should kill yourself if you have it, I think. Um...

• 22:38Speaker 04

  Sorry. No, I, I think we have...

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why there's medicine. Because I think, you know, the frontier of sexual research, as Mary Roach will tell us in the next clip, might be through medications, through pharmaceuticals.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And look at all the other things we enhance in life by chemically induced forces, right? I mean, if you're a little sleepy and you want to be awake, pump yourself with caffeine. If you want to lift high, heavy weights, you get steroids. If you want, get the red out of your eye, you use, you know, Visine, or whatever is the brand.

• 23:08Speaker 04

  That's a chemical?

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything we put in our bodies is a chemical.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 23:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it's all about, chemi... We're just a sack of chemicals.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  We're just gonna be adapting to the chemicals.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So, it's we and the chemicals together that makes the life that we lead.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, why wouldn't that also play out with regard to sex? So, let's find out what Mary Roach says

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  about the frontier of sexual research in chemistry.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Give it to me, Roach!

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there still a frontier of sexual research that is beyond what has been done so far?

• 23:39Mary Roach?

  Well, these days it tends to be pharmaceutical stuff, like looking for a pill for post-menopausal women with flagging libido. That's where all the money is now.

• 23:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, of course, right.

• 23:51Mary Roach?

  Yeah, so looking kind of, it isn't a female Viagra, because obviously Viagra has to do with, you know, vasodilation and erection. Women don't need an erection.

• 23:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. But metaphorically, it's the same.

• 24:01Mary Roach?

  Well, it has to do with sex drive and libido. That's what they're looking for. Viagra's more for a performance.

• 24:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what I wonder. If your libido drops and you're just less interested in sex, what's your incentive to bring it back? Like, what do you care? Just have less sex?

• 24:13Mary Roach?

  Your husband wants you to.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's a mismatch.

• 24:16Mary Roach?

  It's a mismatch, right. Especially now that there's Viagra, because it used to be maybe there was a little bit of harmony and...

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:21Mary Roach?

  ...in your passing years, and now you bring Viagra in.

• 24:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not a man's ready at any time of day.

• 24:26Mary Roach?

  That's right, and the woman's like, "Oh, my God, are you kidding me?"

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For at least four hours at a time.

• 24:29Mary Roach?

  At least, that's right. Or, it can be upsetting if you're somebody who used to have a really healthy libido and you think, "This is part of who I am," and all of a sudden you just don't think about sex anymore, and maybe that's something you want to change.

• 24:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. So if we find a chemical that'll make women aroused...

• 24:47Mary Roach?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  ...when they wouldn't otherwise be, and then you have Viagra, then do you worry that the future of the world, everyone is just having sex?

• 24:55Speaker 04

  No, I think that's beautiful.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then the economy collapses?

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I hope it does.

• 24:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that's why the economy's collapsing now.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go to my next clip with Mary Wode. She was kind enough to visit me in my office at the Heaven Planetarium.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  That's huge. How'd you even get her?

• 25:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, it was fun. It was fun. And I pulled out my trusty microphone, and let's talk about arousal and the role of pornography.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:18Mary Roach?

  Usually what's going on with the scientists in the white coats and the people having sex, it's one person and a finger or a vibrator. I mean, if you're studying arousal and orgasm, you don't need two people. So, just for simplicity's sake, just you have one person come in, and whether they're in an MRI or you're whatever, you're rigging them up for measurement, it's simpler to stop.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's really just the autonomic response? So it's not the arousal triggered by another person? It assumes you could do it yourself, or that a machine can do it to you?

• 25:46Mary Roach?

  Right, and sometimes they, and they show, they'll show...

• 25:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pictures?

• 25:49Mary Roach?

  Yes, they call it visual erotic stimulation. It's porn. V E S.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get that in one syllable, porn.

• 25:56Mary Roach?

  So they'll show snippets. And I thought there was a special educational, scientific, research porn supply house. I said, where do you get these films? And she looked at me like, of course, you get them at the porn shop.

• 26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the porn shop, on the corner porn shop, yeah. They're not a special medical version. I have a prescription for.

• 26:12Mary Roach?

  I did, I thought it was like a special, somehow sanitized erotic scientific video. But no.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there an understanding of why women are perfectly arousable with soft core porn in ways that a man might require hardcore porn? Do they look at sex differences among arousal?

• 26:30Mary Roach?

  They did, well, you know, this is kind of counterintuitive, but what they found surprisingly, that men were aroused by porn that fit their sexual orientation. Like, they weren't aroused by gay, or if there are animals involved, or whatever. They were aroused by men and women having sex, or women and women, because there's two naked women. But the women responded to anything.

• 26:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The entire spectrum.

• 26:51Mary Roach?

  The entire spectrum.

• 26:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Animals.

• 26:52Mary Roach?

  Anything, you name it. They responded, in terms of the measurement.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what they would say, but what how the body was reacting.

• 26:58Mary Roach?

  The vaginal blood flow.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they can't say.

• 26:59Mary Roach?

  Well, or they just didn't pick up on it. Like, either they were in denial, or they were so subtle that they weren't picking up on it. But physiologically, they responded to everything. They used, I think, some images of bonobo monkeys, anything.

• 27:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anything will turn a woman on.

• 27:12Mary Roach?

  And no one thinks that. People think of, you know, men as being visually stimulated, and women is just could care less. But if you asked the women, they wouldn't necessarily say that. I mean, they might say, that didn't do anything for me. But they're.

• 27:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have electrodes that say otherwise.

• 27:24Mary Roach?

  Their vaginas were saying otherwise. And this is also, there's a disconnect with women between the vagina, the body, and the brain. Like Viagra actually does quote-unquote "work" on women. It does increase vaginal blood flow, but the women don't pick up on it. They don't feel aroused.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't change the urge.

• 27:41Mary Roach?

  It doesn't change the, no, no. It does have an effect, but it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, which is make them feeling like they want to have sex.

• 27:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so it doesn't affect the libido.

• 27:51Mary Roach?

  It doesn't affect the libido. So that is an interesting disconnect that isn't there with men so much. And I asked a researcher, like, well, why, why is this? She said, well, it could be just because if you're a man, you know, and you have an erection, it's kind of hard to ignore. And you're a woman, it's a little more subtle.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, women are turned on by everything.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if you won't admit it to yourself.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  Well, I'll admit it, I've watched game porn and I really like it.

• 28:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 28:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gay guys, guys doing it.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Guys on guys.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's two guys.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Four guys and a train. They can do that.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and four women?

• 28:24Speaker 04

  They can do a lot of stuff.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what Mary Roach was saying is it's animals.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Bonobos monkeys are incredible too, you should do a whole segment on them.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just like it.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, they just like, they'll hump you to say hello. Ugh, they're amazing.

• 28:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're very close genetically to us. So maybe we're in denial of true inner urges.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Maybe.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, usually to find monogamous other animals, we have to like find tree shrews or something, or bald eagles, but not the very closest genetic identity to us, the bonobo chimps.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Bonobo chimps.

• 28:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what do you know about bonobos? Did you like see the Nature Channel?

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, well I researched some for the book, we have a section, we have a section in the book about them because they're so...

• 29:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your book, the Sexy Book of Sexy Sex?

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, we have a section about, what we did is we went into the jungle and we lived with the bonobos. So we learned our language.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So sex is their, is their, is their vehicle?

• 29:19Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To communicate ideas and thoughts?

• 29:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, are you in denial of this result?

• 29:26Speaker 04

  No, 100% I agree.

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're on it.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Well, because women too, I think, well, I don't know, you know, because the biggest sexual organ of course is the brain, and so it's silly to say that...

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just as women tell each other, right?

• 29:39Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 29:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A guy would never say that. It's well known, the guy's brain ceases function.

• 29:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is clear.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  Well, let's just say for today that the...

• 29:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The brain is the man's smallest sexual organ, okay? It plays no role.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, but we have fantasies and also we have all our smut novels too, you can't forget those. Like on the chain, like, that's how I learned about sex too, was I would just flip to page 16 and page 180 of all those...

• 30:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all you need, just hit the two pages.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  That's when they started it. That's when they start, then they had a fight and then, ah, made it up.

• 30:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Makeup sex, right, right, okay. I knew a woman who was a romance novelist, I was kinda scared to walk by her.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  Why?

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because, you know, you just never know what's going on in their head.

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Oh, well, what's going on in her head is going on in all our heads.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more of the science of sex with Christian Shaw and my clips with the author, Mary Roach. You're listening to StarTalk Radio. See you in a moment.

• 31:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. Here's more of this week's episode.

• 31:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, what questions you have called from our, our listening audience?

• 31:13Chuck Nice?

  Well, you know, I, I recognize this handle as somebody I, I know on Twitter. So I figure I'll go ahead and read this. This is from at Ben makes TV and he wants to know this. Why does no one love me?

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 31:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm going to say it's because you pleasure yourself publicly on the train. People just can't forgive that fan. They can't forgive you for it.

• 31:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me, let me broaden the question, Helen, and ask, is there someone for everyone?

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 31:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If there is, then the person who can't find love is not looking hard enough.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Not looking hard enough. You, you know, if you go on these dating sites, it does require some work, you know? First of all, he's probably too picky. You know, lower your standards.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The guy who's looking for, for, for love.

• 32:00Chuck Nice?

  Looking for love.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When in doubt, lower your standards. Is this advice you're giving us, Helen? I got your book here, The Anatomy of Love. You're telling us.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Think of reasons to say yes. You know, there's a huge part of the brain that enables us to overlook the negative and focus on the positive.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do it all the time. When we want to.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. When you, but one of the problems when you're meeting people online is you know so little about them when you start out that you over, you know, you overweight those few things that you know.

• 32:24Chuck Nice?

  That you don't like.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  And you break it up before you, the more you get to know somebody, the more you like them. You gotta give people a chance, you know?

• 32:32Chuck Nice?

  See, now that is a chemical thing because, and I'm probably gonna get in trouble if I say this. Uh, I'm gonna say this.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can edit this, Chuck.

• 32:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay, good. All right. So here's the truth. I have often sat and said to myself, why, after 18 years of marriage?

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, stop there. Okay.

• 32:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me protect Chuck from himself.

• 32:56Chuck Nice?

  I'm not gonna protect me. I'm not gonna say this.

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta protect Chuck.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  I'm telling you.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back away from the microphone.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  But I've put people in scanners.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  It's possible to remain in love long time. I, we have, I and my colleagues have put 17 people into the scanner who were married an average of 21 years, so you're, you're behind the game.

• 33:18Chuck Nice?

  I'm still in love. No, that's my point.

• 33:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back away from the mic, Chuck.

• 33:23Chuck Nice?

  No, you're right. I said, okay, but I'm still in love, in love. I mean, however, no, now listen to me, don't, and you know what? Listen, if I were to put it down on paper.

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  I should not be in love.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:37Chuck Nice?

  I should not be.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Very unrealistic.

• 33:38Chuck Nice?

  Really, I should not be. This woman, I love her to death and there's nothing she can do that's wrong. And if I were to actually go and say all the stuff that I probably would be like, no, I don't like that, no, I don't like, I should have left long ago.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if you, if you, if you deconstruct.

• 33:54Chuck Nice?

  If I deconstruct my relationship.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's nothing there, but in total, it's working for you.

• 33:58Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God. It's the best thing ever happened to me.

• 34:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Helen.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  We evolved it.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  Yikes.

• 34:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We evolved to deceive.

• 34:06Chuck Nice?

  Chuck, you're lying to yourself.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  No, you're not.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, here's why you are in love with your wife. Wait, wait, Helen, Helen.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  You are overlooking the negative and there's a huge part of the brain that enables you to do that and bless it.

• 34:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, but let me, let me get, let me come in the back door there. If you do have a list of what you like in someone and then you put it on one of these websites and then you find someone that matches it, the premise is that's your, that's your soulmate. But what Chuck is saying is if you laid out the, the inventory, if you laid out the portfolio of, then no, he would have never met her in this way.

• 34:41Chuck Nice?

  I would have never met her this way.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  I bet that there are real, no, you wouldn't have met her. But once you did meet her, there is things about that woman that you really like that, that ring deep into your love map.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then what of these websites that are matching people up and slicing and dicing them in these very, what, what is it? Farm?

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Farmers.com.

• 35:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Farmers.com. Farmers can. Meet other farmers.

• 35:05Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Meet and mate with other farmers.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  It's a whole lifestyle, so that you can understand it. But the bottom line is, these are not dating services. These are introducing services. The only true algorithm is your own human brain. So the faster you can get out, meet the guy or girl in the bar.

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a wait.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  In the street, you know, it's just giving you a whole range of people. And then you gotta do the job. We can give you the people, but you gotta do the job. And that's what's really thrilling.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But would you agree that if you pre, if you proscribe?

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you think you're gonna be attracted to, that is greatly restricting your options.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  The problem is.

• 35:39Chuck Nice?

  Or it could be, at least.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 35:40Chuck Nice?

  At least there's a potential for that, right?

• 35:43Speaker 02

  It's, listen, staying at home and looking for somebody under the couch is certainly gonna, you know, not do much for your options. I mean, the bottom line is, you know, how many people do you meet through your friends? How many do you meet at work? How many people do you meet when you're playing?

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the fitness center, yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  You know, at the fitness center. And you run through all that. And then how are you gonna meet people? No, I think these dating services, introducing services, give you a much broader range than you, than we've ever had in all of our human.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would agree. Well, even the ones that specify, because there's JDate for Jews. And lately, there's like a white people one.

• 36:13Chuck Nice?

  White People Meet?

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, white people? What, do they really have a hard time finding?

• 36:17Chuck Nice?

  Black People Meet, to which I told a friend, how could I ever meet a white girl on Black People Meet?

• 36:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but.

• 36:23Chuck Nice?

  How craziness is that?

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But dude, do white people actually have a problem finding other white people in a country that, that?

• 36:29Chuck Nice?

  Apparently, all these white people live in Detroit.

• 36:33Chuck Nice?

  It's just like, I don't know where I'm gonna find another white person. Every time I look around, I'm like, here in Detroit, and I can't find any white people.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I need a web service to help me right on.

• 36:42Chuck Nice?

  Web service to help me.

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  But you do meet many more people on these dating sites than we ever did through all of history. Plus, throughout your life, I mean, we've got things like Our Time, which is for people over 50. I mean, I can't stand in a bar and have the perfect boy run by, you know.

• 36:58Chuck Nice?

  You're selling yourself short there, Helen.

• 37:01Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 37:01Chuck Nice?

  Tell you right now.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  What party did you have in Maine?

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, what are the questions you got there?

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  Alright, let's get back to this.

• 37:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell, tell, we told our boy here to get out.

• 37:13Chuck Nice?

  Ben, get out the house, get out the house, Ben.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 37:17Chuck Nice?

  That's the answer to your question, alright?

• 37:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, just, just, I'm sorry. Just to round that out, round out that question.

• 37:25Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should someone change themselves to be more attractive to other people?

• 37:30Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 37:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should they go through a makeover?

• 37:32Chuck Nice?

  Good.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should they change their hair?

• 37:34Chuck Nice?

  Mm.

• 37:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should they, other than the minimum hygiene that we expect in society?

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Should someone do that if they're desperate for love?

• 37:42Chuck Nice?

  And let me just put-

• 37:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then, then if they find that person, did that person fall in love with what they created for themselves?

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And is it not really-

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Well, we do fall in love with what we created for ourselves.

• 37:50Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  No matter what. Even if somebody fits somewhat within your love map, you overlook what doesn't fit and you focus on what you do. So we're constantly-

• 37:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your love map, I like that, yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it is. We have this, you know, we evolve, as small children, we grow up and we, we create a list, unconscious list of what we're looking for in a partner. And then you see the perfect person at the perfect time, and they fit pretty much in your love map, and you get rid, excuse me, what you, what you don't like, and you just focus on what you do. So that's, that's good. But what was that other question?

• 38:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, what were you gonna say?

• 38:18Chuck Nice?

  No, I'm saying that, you know, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Should you change yourself?

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 38:23Chuck Nice?

  Uh, you know, and on the one hand, the answer is no.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, you should watch-

• 38:27Chuck Nice?

  If you're a man, because don't worry, she's gonna do that for you.

• 38:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For you.

• 38:31Chuck Nice?

  You do not have to worry.

• 38:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's in the cards.

• 38:35Chuck Nice?

  Be yourself, man, because whatever you are and whoever you are, that is not what you are going to be in two years.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  It's a good project for us girls, yeah.

• 38:44Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, believe me.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  We have a lot, lots of, lot of, lot of work to do.

• 38:46Chuck Nice?

  I, let me tell you, I have a friend that I saw, it has been 20 years since we've seen each other.

• 38:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 38:51Chuck Nice?

  And we are, we, we got to hang out. I was in Philadelphia, and we got to hang out, we haven't seen each other in 20 years. And-

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Philly's your place, that's right.

• 38:57Chuck Nice?

  That's my hometown. And at the end of the night, he was like, "Wow, man, you, you really have changed." And he really hadn't.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:06Chuck Nice?

  But he's not married.

• 39:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  What did you change?

• 39:08Chuck Nice?

  Well, he's just me, I'm-

• 39:10Speaker 02

  What did you change?

• 39:11Chuck Nice?

  Well, mostly now that I'm married, I'm gay. Um, that's the most thing, you know, 'cause-

• 39:19Speaker 02

  I think you need to do change, listen, if it's not working, you might ought to make some changes. But I wouldn't certainly make any changes. I mean, first of all, we, it's very hard to make changes in personality. You can be somebody else, but it's tiring.

• 39:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Out of character.

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an investment of energy at all times.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and as it turns out, you know, you'll turn off, I mean, by being who you are, you will turn off some people. But when you find the right one, that person's gonna really love you. So I wouldn't make huge changes. Sure, you, you know, you can, you can change your hair and, and maybe stop swearing, or, or, you know, read a little bit more so that you're better educated, or whatever.

• 39:51Chuck Nice?

  Comfort changes.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:53Chuck Nice?

  Because that might make the other person comfortable.

• 39:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good, good. Without really totally messing with you.

• 39:56Chuck Nice?

  Without really messing with you.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 39:58Chuck Nice?

  Right, okay.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  And that's as proud as you don't like of you, and, you know, you can work on that too, but, you know, as you say, she's gonna work on your toe, you know.

• 40:06Chuck Nice?

  Rest assured.

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 40:07Chuck Nice?

  Next question. Let us move on.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  But men do their work too, you know, women are always scrambling to be, to please.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 40:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but, but, but we don't know that that's what you're doing for us. You just appear that way. And we think, hey, wow, I really like that. Not knowing that you spent five hours creating that, which we just said we like.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  But doesn't your wife come and say?

• 40:23Chuck Nice?

  That was very profound what you just said.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:25Chuck Nice?

  Because that is the difference between what makes a woman appreciate you. Because you noticed what she did, but you just gave the true male perspective, which is, we're appreciative of it. We just think like, wow, look at you. This is how you look.

• 40:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, we're completely oblivious.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Completely oblivious that you actually took effort and time to make yourself look that way. We're just like, wow, okay, that looks good.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're idiots. Basically, we can...

• 40:49Speaker 02

  I don't know, I am for, for men, and I don't think you're idiots. Um, but, but, yeah, I, yeah. I'll keep to my self-deception on that.

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, exactly, exactly.

• 41:00Chuck Nice?

  All right, all right, here we go. Uh, this is Ray, coming to us from Twitter as well. And Ray has a very simple succinct question, but I think it's quite in-depth when you look at it. Why does love hurt?

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  Boom. That's all he asked, but I gotta say, that's, that's pretty prolific what he just said. What he just asked.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  It really does. So we've put a lot of people into a scanner who've just been dumped. And the brain regions that become active when you've been dumped is... Three brain regions linked with intense craving. A brain region linked with physical pain.

• 41:34Chuck Nice?

  Physical pain.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Physical pain, a brain region, and actually aspirin helps. When you're rejected in love, there's an academic article on that.

• 41:41Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  And also anxiety that goes along with the physical pain. And you're also brain regions linked with trying to figure out what went wrong. The costs, the benefits, what happened here. And I think so the brain is in overdrive. It is in, it's in a terrible state. This is why we have all these crimes of passion, you know? And why does it hurt? It hurts because you've lost, once I said, you know, life's greatest prize, a mating partner. You've, you've lost the ability to pass your DNA on to eternity. I think nature overdid it, to be perfectly honest. We really, we really suffer terribly. And there's basically two stages of getting rejected. The first is protest. You just try to win the person back. You'll try to seduce. You'll try to threaten.

• 42:21Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  You'll, you'll try to make them jealous and all that.

• 42:23Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And then you slip into this incredible depression.

• 42:26Chuck Nice?

  Unless you get them back.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  And then you get them back.

• 42:28Chuck Nice?

  In which case you slip into indifference, like, why did I ever want you?

• 42:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I wasn't.

• 42:33Chuck Nice?

  Why do I keep doing this?

• 42:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've heard that other people say this.

• 42:36Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 42:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Read about it, Chuck.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  But I, I think it hurts.

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She thinks a real part of the brain center that is responsible.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  There's no question about it. Big parts of the brain become incredibly overactive. You know, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't stop crying.

• 42:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's disruptive to your human physiology.

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Yes, and to your social relations.

• 42:54Chuck Nice?

  So lovesick is an actual sick.

• 42:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's an actual sick.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  And you can die from being rejected.

• 42:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, don't tell me you die from a broken heart.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  You die from heart attacks and strokes.

• 43:04Chuck Nice?

  So the stress.

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so your heart did break.

• 43:06Chuck Nice?

  With a great deal of anxiety. Stress actually manifests itself physically. And you end up dying of a stroke or a heart attack because of.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it drives up the dopamine system in the beginning. That gives you all that energy and focus and motivation and craving. And then after a while, you can't get them, you finally give up, and you slip into sort of a profound depression.

• 43:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, as a corollary to this, there are people who are in love with people they've never met.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 43:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now are they, they're not the.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  They're practicing.

• 43:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're not the mating partner that they got to know intimately.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But nonetheless, the sentiment is still there.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  It's a crush, and it's most largely teenagers. But it can be somebody at work you don't ever dare come close to, but you know, you feel all that. It'll go away.

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're grown, I agree with the teenager thing, but isn't that more women? And when you get older, it's the male stalker of the women?

• 43:53Speaker 02

  No, um, men fall in love faster than women do. Uh, they fall in love more often than women do. Uh, when they meet somebody that they really like, they wanna introduce them to friends and family sooner. Men wanna move in sooner. Men have more intimate conversations with their wives than women do with their husbands, because women have their intimate conversations with their girlfriends. And men are two and a half times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship is over. So, men are the more...

• 44:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow, so basically...

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh wait, just to be clear, I think we're more likely to commit suicide in all categories.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Probably, yes, yes. And homicide, you know.

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  It's a more delicate...

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And men are just completely messed up.

• 44:27Chuck Nice?

  I was gonna say, it sounds to me like we're a bunch of love pussies. Ah, that's what it comes down to.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Oh my god, I can't live without you. Women are pretty bad, believe me, I've had 'em on my couch.

• 44:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, okay, so we've established it's real.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  It's real.

• 44:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The pain is real, it's not imagined. You can't just say, "Get over it." It's like breaking your leg and saying, "Get over it."

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Exactly. As a matter of fact, a week later, you can't remember any physical pain in your tooth, but a week later, you're still really suffering from romantic rejection.

• 44:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 44:57Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's baggage, I think, that's evolutionary baggage.

• 45:00Chuck Nice?

  Is there any truth to the fact that they say for every, uh, for every year you're together, it takes six months to get over?

• 45:08Speaker 02

  I don't know, that's interesting.

• 45:10Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, they say so forever, if you're together with...

• 45:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So at some point, it would take longer than your life, your actuarial life expectancy.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 45:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get over it.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  It's gonna depend on who you are, what your other alternatives are, how much you invested in it, how old you are. There's gonna be many forces in how you get over it, and it's not...

• 45:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whether you bought the couch together, because then you'll have to take the chainsaw, cut it in half when you split up.

• 45:29Chuck Nice?

  Well, thank god we didn't buy the dog together.

• 45:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, god.

• 45:36Chuck Nice?

  Here we go, let's move on.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Move on up.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  This is Joe Pettingill from Portland, Oregon, coming to us through Facebook. Wants to know this. Biologically, how does the love of a pet differ from the love of a person or love of an object?

• 45:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does this mean a person's love of a pet, not a pet's love of the person?

• 45:57Chuck Nice?

  Right, not a pet's love of a person, but even though that's a very interesting, I'd like to know about that now that you brought it up. Like, you know.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if she studies non-human animals.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Oh, that's great. I do, because you have to understand.

• 46:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scare me every day you keep talking and telling me what you put in your machine.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  I think that's very cool.

• 46:14Chuck Nice?

  I think my dog wants to bang me.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  But, you know, there's a constellation of traits that are linked with feelings.

• 46:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have permission to use that word in that way, for me?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 46:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Constellation, yes, good.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  And among those things are the drive to actually have sex with the person. And you really don't, most people want to have sex with their dog. So you have many of the traits linked with romantic love. I mean, the obsession, the focus, the, you know, you think your dog's the best-looking dog in the whole universe. It's the only dog that's alive that counts, et cetera, et cetera. So you have some of the characteristics of intense romantic love and feelings of deep attachment, that second brain system. But you don't have any of these sexual things.

• 46:53Chuck Nice?

  It's the intimacy or physical intimacy that sets that apart.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so here's an interesting.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  You can fall in love with your small baby, too, and, you know, you can fall in love with all kinds of things. But yes, it's that sexual component that's missing.

• 47:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fall in love with a toaster.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:08Chuck Nice?

  Just don't have sex with.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  It'll be hot.

• 47:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so I have a question on that animal frontier. Dogs were basically bred for their loyalty to humans, among other properties. So, you know, there's an old saying, be the person who your dog thinks you are.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Oh, how wonderful.

• 47:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because your dog thinks you're the greatest thing ever. You come home, no matter what, no matter the day the dog had, no matter the day, you are the best person there ever was to happen to them. So that might. Might fool you into thinking that this is a relationship.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the person appreciates you for who and what you are. Now, cats, not so much.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  No, not so much.

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, do we have data to show that people have stronger relationships with their dogs than they do with their cats? Because the dog is reciprocal in its...

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes, and in fact, you know, they call it chick bait. I mean, a man with a dog walking down the street picks up more girls than if he's walking along with a cat.

• 48:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Must love dogs, the whole movie with that title. Must love dogs.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  He's basically advertising that he can take care of something.

• 48:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a pretty low bar. Take care of a pet. Maybe he's good mating material.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Actually, we've got data on that.

• 48:30Chuck Nice?

  He picks up the poop. That's good.

• 48:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to a special mashup edition of StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.