Strange

Can you really fall in love at first sight?

by Amy Judd | April 9, 2009 at 10:46 am

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According to some scientists, some species can really fall in love at first sight, but it all comes down to genetics.

Scientists looked at fruit flies, which can have implications for humans, and found that the female fruit fly are already aware of which males are more genetically suitable for them, and as a result more eggs are made through these good matches rather than matches with less genetic compatiblity. This research leads scientists to suggest that females are able to judge a potential mate upon their first meeting and can biologically react to that.

The scientists studied the mating of the fruit flies and when females mated with males that were from a different strain they seemed more genetically compatible, and they produced more eggs. The females seem able to detect which males are closer in relation and that can lead to less eggs and more birth defects, so the females do not mate with them.

"You could call it love at first encounter. That might be the most accurate, because we don't really know what about this encounter is driving this response," said study co-author Andrew Clark of Cornell University, explaining that it wasn't just sight, but perhaps smell or sound or some other sense that alerted a female her biological match was near.

It appeared in the female fruit flies, that they were always wired for love whenever there might be a chance.

"We also saw that males from one fly strain were more successful in garnering progeny with females [of both strains]," said study lead author Mariana Wolfner, professor of developmental biology at Cornell. "One could imagine that sort of thing happening in any species, if a particular male made more sperm, or sperm that were better at reaching or fertilizing eggs, or if he made versions of seminal proteins that better interacted with the physiology of his mate. But I don't know of any direct evidence of this in humans."

So, if we were all fruit flies we might be able to fall in love at first sight, but it appears that humans are a bit more complex than that.

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