Why do I find titles like “Rats, Exploding Sewers, and Demons of the Deep: The Hazards of Roman Sewers” completely irresistible, while my spouse can resist them absolutely? “Disgust Dampens Women’s Sexual Arousal More Than Fear,” a recent ScienceDaily.com article, proved equally alluring “Being disgusted is a bigger passion killer for women than fear, according to new research,” it stated. Surprisingly, the study “is the first to use medical equipment in addition to self-reporting.”

“It makes sense that sexual arousal and disgust would affect one another,” according to the article. “Sexual arousal motivates us toward closeness with others and their bodies while disgust moves us away. Given these competing motivations, every one of our ancestors had to overcome disgust in order … to reproduce.”

Unsurprisingly, the report also found that one “of the most consistent differences science has found between men and women is that men are less sensitive to disgust than women, especially when it comes to sex.” Perhaps it all figures into Arizona State researcher Melissa WilsonSayres’ study that discovered that 4,000-8,000 years ago, right when agriculture was discovered and villages began to be invented, 17 women passed along their genes compared to each man. This happened all over the world, yet there’s no evidence of a virus or other natural calamity causing it.

The culprit’s probably creeping civilization. In an IFLSScience.com article, Sayers said, “[i]nstead of ‘survival of the fittest’ in a biological sense, the accumulation of wealth and power may have increased the reproductive success of a limited number of ‘socially fit’ males and their sons.” Other research has found that “[a]lmost all parents say they don’t favor one of their children over another, but economic recessions subconsciously lead parents to prefer girls over boys.”

A ScienceDaily.com article quoted Vladas Griskevicius of Rutger Business School saying “t]hese findings in humans align well with the behavior of other animals. When resources are scarce parents prefer females because they have larger reproductive payoff. Almost every female child will produce some offspring, but many male children end up having zero offspring.” For example, the study looked at the nation’s retail spending on apparel for boys 1984 and 2011 and discovered that “when the economy was struggling, the ration of spending on girls versus boys increased 19.8 percent compared to when the economy was faring well.”

It’s worth noting that in economic hard times, like Alaska’s, males and females both need public libraries more than ever, turning to them for job information, entertainment, education, etc. Even in good economies, Americans rely on their libraries to help bolster their families, livelihoods, and lifestyles.

Meanwhile, researchers are expanding their study of that genetic dip 4,000-8,000 years ago to find why those prehistoric farmers stopped reproducing. Maybe they were simply disgusting. My workspaces have been termed messy, and to some, disgusting. How delightful to read the online Independent.com article, “Why being messy can be a positive trait” that cites a recent University of Wisconsin study that found while “working at a neat, tidy desk may make a person more likely to eat healthily and be more generous, a messier desk can promote creativity and help give birth to ideas.”

The study was published in the journal “Psychological Science,” and its authors said, [m]essy desks may not be as detrimental as they appear to be, as the problem-solving approaches they seem to cause can boost work efficiency or enhance employees’ creativity in problem solving.” How can this be? The authors of the book “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder” – available at your public library – noted that “the ‘more important, urgent work lurks at the top of the clutter,’ while the ‘safely ignorable stuff’ falls to the bottom.” Makes sense to me.

Otherwise, I blame defective URB-597. The irresistible article titled, “Scientist discover a difference between the sexes,” said a Northwestern University study has learned that “[m]ale and female brains operate a different molecular level.” URB-597 apparently affects women’s brains more than men’s by heightening the synapse responses in the brain’s hippocampus region that regulates “a variety of physiological processes including memory, motivational state, appetite, and pain.”.

That could explain my crappy memory, messiness, and, perhaps, my insatiable appetite for reading.