Posted on 10/31/2009 7:46:34 AM PDT by Dysart
They say the gesture allows a bug named Cytomegalovirus, which is dangerous in pregnancy, to be passed from man to woman to give her time to build up protection against it.
The bug is found in saliva and normally causes no problems. But it can be extremely dangerous if caught while pregnant and can kill unborn babies or cause birth defects.
Writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, researcher Dr Colin Hendrie from the University of Leeds, said: "Female inoculation with a specific male's cytomegalovirus is most efficiently achieved through mouth-to-mouth contact and saliva exchange, particularly where the flow of saliva is from the male to the typically shorter female."
Kissing the same person for about six months provides the best protection, he added.
As the relationships progresses and the kisses become more passionate, the woman's immunity builds up, cutting her odds of becoming ill.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
They discovered the Cytomegalovirus centuries ago and developed the kiss as a preventative. Got it.
The Virus made em do it!
Another scientifically illiterate story. “Kissing was developed...” (Oh? by whom?) is not how it works. The theory (and it is a theory) is that certain behaviors (or traits) favor survival and reproduction, resulting in a larger population of people with those behaviors (or traits).
You’re right, of course. This needs more field study.
gosh, if this is true, then the french should be pretty much immune to EVERYTHING!
Or...just maybe....to find out if you're a lousy kisser. Thus, probably lousy at other things, as well.
Duh....
.....Every kid knows kissing spreads COOTIES!
I had always thought that it derived from the practice in most primitive cultures (lacking Cuisinarts) of feeding babies and invalids by pre-chewing the food and then transferring it to their mouths.
Regards,
Interesting question. And you would think the answer would be yes, but I don’t have any specific info. Good second point re pre-chewing conferring immunity. Same mechanism.
I wasn't saying anything about the exchange of premasticated food (or saliva) possibly conferring immunity. I'm saying simply that kissing is entirely explainable without recourse to immunity-based arguments (Occam's Razor). Perhaps, instead, it is derived from the practice, in prehistoric times, of people pre-chewing and directly transferring food to toothless tribe members (babies, oldsters) in order to nourish them (not to confer immunity, which the oldsters .- being oldsters - would have anyway, and which the babies - being breast-fed babies - would likewise have anyway).
Rather, transferring (often tough) premasticated food in this fashion (mouth-to-mouth) was probably commonplace, at least among intimate family members. It was probably pleasurable for both babies and mothers. In these tribes, kissing among adults was thus perhaps a "hold-over" or a "throw-back" to a behavior learnt in their childhood years. (However, it may be that, in primitive societies, kissing was much less prevalent than in modern societies.)
Regards,
Birds do it, bees do it, even monkeys in the trees do it.
Let’s do it. Let’s re-masticate then regorge our young’s food.
(oh, it sounds so romantic that way).
Only if you do it right.
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They discovered the Cytomegalovirus centuries ago and developed the kiss as a preventative. Got it.
Lol!
Similar to a Nova on a few years back about elephants.
There was a scene when it showed very young elephants playing in a pile of the adult poop. Richard Kiley (I think it was him) then says “They do this to get exposure to the bacteria they need in their gut for proper digestion...”
BS! Or maybe ES!!
They’re doing it because they’re kids and they want to play in a pile of sh*t!!
WTF? How has ANYONE survived?
"It's Just An 'Inoculation'...Trust Me..." One of the greatest lies ever told...(can you say "morning sickness")
If only women understood, we do it all out of concern for their health.
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