TORONTO—Gay or straight, male or female—everyone is having fewer affairs now than they were in the 1970s. According to a new study presented here today at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, extramarital (and extra-partnership) sex is way down, and discussion about the topic within couples is way up.

Psychologists at Alliant International University in San Francisco and their colleagues compared survey responses from two large groups of couples, self-categorized as gay men, heterosexual men, lesbians or heterosexual women. About 12,000 people answered the relevant questions in 1975; close to 1,000 participated in 2000. The average length of the relationship at the time of the survey varied between groups, from about four and a half years for lesbians, almost seven years for gay men and about 14 years for heterosexual couples in 1974 to nearly 11 years for lesbians, 13.5 years for gay men and almost 20 years together for straight couples in the 2000 survey.

With the recession grinding into its 17th official month, a lot of things are on sale right now – including male sex cells.

In a move unprecedented in its history, Xytex, one of the oldest sperm and tissue banks in the U.S., is offering a steep discount on sperm: up to $200 off, for a net price of between $250 and $350 per vial.

Unfortunately, the discount only applies to sperm from donors with large inventory, thanks to multiple donations and/or an unusually high sperm count and quality.

"We're all feeling the effects of the economy and, especially for families seeking reproductive options, every dollar counts, " Xytex spokesperson Danielle Moores told AFP, explaining why the company took the step.

Drug regulators must make the morning-after pill available over the counter to girls as young as age 17, a federal judge in New York ruled yesterday, suggesting that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) consider making the medication accessible to younger girls, as well.

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman said the FDA has 30 days to comply with his decision. He said that delays in approving the drug, Barr Pharmaceuticals’ Plan B, for non-prescription sale were “repeated and unreasonable,” and that the agency's decisions about the drug, including limiting it to women 18 and older, were “arbitrary and capricious.”

The amount of HIV infection among people over 50 is “surprisingly high,” World Health Organization (WHO) officials say, and despite much speculation about why, there’s little definitive information that might shed light on the trend.

“HIV prevalence and incidence in the over–50-year-olds seem surprisingly high and the risk factors are totally unexplored,” according to an editorial in the March Bulletin of the World Health Organization. “Understanding the epidemiology of HIV infection in older individuals can lead to interventions to make these years safer and more enjoyable.”

In 2005 people 50 and older accounted for 15 percent of the new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the U.S. and 24 percent of people living with the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These figures are up 17 percent since 2001.

Bad news for all you cold-weather wimps: Punxsutawney Phil saw his pudgy shadow this morning, foretelling six more weeks of winter—if you believe the Groundhog Day legend.

Actually, Phil likely had more, ahem, urgent matters on his mind this chilly morn (unless, as USA Today's The Weather Guys blog suggests, he was just peeved at being awakened after celebrating his home state’s Super Bowl win by the Steelers last night). Groundhogs who emerge from hibernation in the dead of February are checking out their mating prospects, according to a Penn State study.

National Science Foundation (NSF) employees wasted scads of time and tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars perusing online porn on the clock—and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (R–Iowa) wants to know how such lapses could occur at a $6-billion federal agency.

The accounts of employees' surfing for smut are documented in the NSF’s semiannual report (pdf), which was published in September and notes seven cases of pornographic exploits among the foundation's 1,500 employees uncovered by Thomas Cross, the foundation’s inspector general (IG).

“The semiannual report raises serious questions about how the National Science Foundation manages its resources," Grassley said in a statement today. "Congress ought to demand a full accounting before it gives the agency another $3 billion in the stimulus bill" set to be debated by the Senate next week. (The House passed an $819 billion version of the package yesterday.)

Last spring, British researchers hit on what seemed like a startling finding: Eating lots of cereal before getting pregnant was associated with conceiving a son. Never mind that sex is determined by chromosomes in the father's sperm. The apparent link between gender and diet generated buzz.

But it turns out cereal may not be your lucky charm if you're hoping for a boy.

Today, another group of scientists is disputing that study, charging that its analysis was flawed and its conclusions due to chance. The researchers—from the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, Cornell University and New York Medical College—report their findings in today's Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the same journal that published the cereal study last April.

What do you do to pass on your genes to the next generation if you are really hard up, it’s too dark to see clearly and you are literally under enormous pressure. The short answer: play rough and weird.

Species of deep-sea squid that strut their stuff in the blackness that prevail thousands of feet beneath the ocean surface encounter few opportunities to  mate and so every tryst must count.

So what's a guy (squid) to do? Males of the species Taningia danae use sharp beaks or hooks on tentacles to make cuts into their mates of more than two inches before depositing sperm packets called spermatophores, Australian biologists tell the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Actor David Duchovny, best known for his role as Fox Mulder on the FOX TV series The X-Files and its related movies, checked himself into a rehab facility for sex addiction, according to news reports and a statement released by his lawyer yesterday.

Duchovny, 48, is married to actress Tea Leoni; they have two children. He is currently starring in the Showtime series Californication. In it, he plays a curmudgeonly writer named Hank Moody with self-destructive tendencies—among them a lecherous lifestyle.

In 2000, ScientificAmerican.com's own Ivan Oransky wrote a story about sex addiction—which is still not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association—for Rx.magazine. In the piece, John Sealy, a Torrance, Calf.-based psychiatrist  calls the condition that has been said to plague 8 percent of men and 3 percent of women as "a pathological relationship with a mood-altering experience with associated denial of escalating adverse consequences and/or loss of control." (Well, that clears it up.)