KISSING

I’m a long time blogger for Discover Mag, but brand new to Tumblr. So far, I’m impressed with how easy it is to navigate and share. For those not already familiar with my work, I’m a biologist turned science writer. My first book Unscientific America (co-authored by Chris Mooney) came out last year and The Science of Kissing debuts early in January. As the publication date gets closer, I’ll be using this site to share material from the book-including some details that didn’t make it into the manuscript!

SoK is a look at this near universal behavior from many lenses of science. I consider why humans got started and how our bodies respond to the experience. I even bring readers into a neuroscience laboratory to see what we might discover about kissing and the brain.

This site will feature related updates and events, as well as photo submissions from readers. Anyone interested in contributing to the growing gallery of kisses from across time, space, and species should email me at srkirshenbaum@yahoo.com.

Thanks for your interest and I hope you enjoy The Science of Kissing!

XX,

SK

While composing The Science of Kissing, I sifted through every source imaginable on the subject. I read papers on anthropology and dentistry, spoke to neuroscientists and classicists, and scanned many pop culture references as well. It’s been fascinating and fun, but one peculiar ‘trivia fact‘ I kept coming across bothered me:

‘Kissing for one minute burns 26 calories.’

Preposterous of course, but I couldn’t help wonder why ‘26′ was popping up everywhere. It seemed so random. Obviously this is not in the book, but I was increasingly curious as to how and where the rumor got started.

And then I finally solved the mystery!

Last week I began accepting questions about my upcoming book, The Science of Kissing.

therewillbewords asked: When did humans start kissing as a show of affection?

The earliest literary evidence we have for kissing dates back to India’s Vedic Sanskrit texts composed around 3,500 years ago. However, given there are so many kissing-like behaviors across the animal kingdom (particularly among our closest primate relatives) it’s likely that our species has been locking lips for a much longer period of time. 

You can read the first question submitted from Annknee on kissing and compatibility here.

Ask me anything!