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Although men were unable to smell the difference between real tears and a saline solution, they had decidedly different reactions to each. Men who sniffed real tears became less sexually aroused by photographs of women than those who sniffed saline. Just to be sure skin was not the culprit, the researchers dripped saline down women’s cheeks, to the same effect: Only real, fresh-cried tears turned men off.

The researchers, from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Israel, actually stumbled across the finding. They expected tears’ chemical signals to trigger empathy or sadness, but that didn’t happen; they did, however, dampen men’s sexual desire. Some researchers believe this phenomenon evolved to protect emotionally vulnerable women from male aggression, while others believe it’s evidence of a heretofore unknown human pheromone, reports the New York Times.

To capture tears, two donor women ages 30 and 31 watched sad movies by themselves and placed vials beneath their eyes to collect teardrops. The researchers needed fresh tears no more than two hours old, so the women watched weepies like “Terms of Endearment,” “My Sister’s Keeper” and “When a Man Loves a Woman,” the Times reports. Their tears were collected 1 milliliter at a time and deposited onto small pads that were attached beneath men's noses, so they could continuously sniff the sadness.

Then 24 men, whose mean age was 27, were shown emotionally ambiguous photographs of women and asked to rate the faces’ sadness and their attractiveness. The faces appeared less sexually attractive after sniffing real tears, according to the study.

The researchers also learned the men experienced a drop in testosterone. Then, the men sniffed tears and watched a sad movie while in a functional MRI machine, which showed reduced activity in the brain regions associated with arousal.

Other bodily fluids, like sweat, are known to contain chemical signals that influence others’ emotions or behaviors, so it makes sense that tears would have a similar effect, the researchers say. The next step is to study the emotional tears of children and men — potentially explaining the lachrymose nature of the new Speaker of the House.

[Science]

The keepers of the scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority, announced Tuesday that as part of their 20th anniversary, they are launching this project to digitize all of the 30,000 fragments that make up the earliest known copy of the Hebrew Bible. Taking a page out of the PopSci handbook, the IAA is entrusting Google with the task of preserving their sacred, prophetic treasures. This is the first time since the 1950s that the entire collection will be photographed.

U.S. company MegaVision developed the high-resolution imaging technology that is to be used on the project. According to the IAA, the resulting images will be just as good as looking at the scrolls themselves. This will allow not only widespread access to the collection, but also minimize the need to expose the delicate 2,000-year-old parchment and papyrus to the harsh effects of light and air.

Once the project is complete, researching the scrolls will be easier than ever. Google Israel and the IAA plan to include transcriptions, translations and a bibliography with the images so you won’t have to be an expert, or even able to read Aramaic in order to decipher the scrolls.

[Israel Antiquities Authority]

As reported in Israeli newspapers, the Israeli government banned the import into the country of Apple iPad. Customs officials confiscated the tablet at the airport travelers arriving in the country. Officials justify their actions by saying that iPad may harm the local wireless networks. Standard wireless networking in the U.S. is more signal powered than the networks in Europe and Israel, that is iPad can interrupt the signal for other devices operating in the Israeli network.

Tourists who have confiscated the tablet at the entrance to the country can regain it at departure by paying a fee for storage devices at the airport. The Apple does not yet commented on this fact, however, they are unlikely to be glad of such developments. The ban coincided with the news that the date of the appearance of Apple iPad on sale in Europe was postponed due to the incredible demand for the device in the U.S., which already sold more than half a million iPad.