…sex-oriented science stories made up three of the top ten for New Scientist’s Top Ten Stories for 2003. These were picked by counting headline click-throughs from the readers of New Scientist, so esoteric topics like dark energy and quantum cryptography didn’t stand a chance. No, leading the pack by popular demand at #1 was “Horrific venereal disease strikes African baboons.” Elibariki Mtui, of the African Wildlife Foundation in Arusha, Tanzania, noted the consequences for male baboons are particularly gruesome: “The genitals kind of rot away, then they just drop off.”

Second place was claimed by “Masturbating may protect against prostate cancer” (boy (ha!), have I got some words at this point I’d better not write down!!!) and trailing in 9th place was “Pretty women scramble men’s ability to assess the future.”

I would post the links to the others in the list, but they’re not science sex news. Experiment: now that you know that I’ve covered the juicy stuff there, will you go ahead anyway and bother to find out what the others are in the New Scientist Top Ten Stories for 2003???