Tinder generation is having less sex than parents did, study finds

Casual sex and the “hookup culture” among Tinder-swiping millennials has been the source of much conversation — and consternation.

But a new study from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour suggests concerns may be misplaced. Researchers analyzed U.S. General Social Survey data from 1989-2014 to find out whether those born from 1980 to 1994 and1995 to 2012 had more sexual partners as adults compared to older generations. (Other data has suggested teenage sexual activity in those cohorts was lower than previous generations.)

Researchers found millennials born in the 1990s were more than twice as likely to be sexually inactive as young adults than those born in the 1960s and 41 per cent more likely than millennials born just a few years earlier in the 1980s.

The researchers attribute the change to sexual education, living with parents longer and a preference for non-penetrative sexual activity.

Scientists discover the sleep switch but how do you turn it on? The circadian rhythm is well understood but only contributes to part of the human sleep-wake cycle. The sleep homeostat, the “sleep switch” that tells the body when it’s time to lie down, remains mysterious.

Scientists at the University of Oxford sought to find out what, exactly, flips the switch.

In fruit flies, the mechanism for sleep homeostasis is located in a cluster of neurons in the brain’s central complex. Active neurons mean the fly is asleep. Quiet neurons mean the fly is awake. Researchers used pulses of light to stimulate the production of dopamine, which quieted the neurons and woke up the flies. Halting dopamine production sent them back to sleep.

The findings were published in the journal Nature and have implications for human sleep. Now that scientists have discovered the switch, they must find out what makes it flip.

Richer neighbourhoods attract more creepy crawlers Luxury doesn’t just mean a big house and a flashy car. It also means that your house might be teeming with creepy crawlers, according to a new study published in the Royal Society’s journal Biology Letters.

Although conventional wisdom might suggest homes in lower-income neighbourhoods would harbour more arthropods — generally, creatures with exoskeletons such as flies, ants, spiders, centipedes and millipedes — researchers found the opposite was true. They hand-counted all living and dead arthropods in 50 homes in Raleigh, N.C., and found higher-income neighbourhoods had a greater diversity.

The researchers concluded that more plants and vegetation from bigger gardens and lawns in those areas led to greater biodiversity outdoors. The critters, as expected, then make their way inside. Women respond well to personal invites — even for Pap test Women who receive an invitation in the mail are more likely to get their Pap test than those who didn’t get an invitation, according to a study associated with the Ontario Cervical Screening Program published in the July issue of the journal Preventive Medicine.

The study looked at the impact of the letters and followup reminders sent out in 2014 by Cancer Care Ontario to reach Ontario women between the ages of 30 and 69 who were eligible for screening.

Women who received the invitations were about 1.7 times more likely to undergo a Pap test compared to women who were eligible but did not receive an invitation.