12 Weird Sex Laws You Won't Believe

Check out oddly specific intimate acts that are off-limits in certain cities and states

America may be known as the land of the free, but it has more laws than you'd expect governing what you can and can't do in the sack—not that you'd attempt most of those things anyway. Although these regulations are so outdated they’re hardly enforced, they still remain on the books. For instance, many states (including Montana, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas) still have anti-sodomy rules, but bet you can't guess what device is banned from going off at the same time as a woman climaxes in Connorsville, WI! Read on for the answer, plus 11 more of the wackiest sex laws ever made.

1. No Unprotected Sex with Satan

If you happen to be in Bakersfield, CA, in the South Central section of the state, and the man you're about to seal the deal with is so devilishly handsome he just may be Lucifer, himself, make sure you have protection. Bakersfield law requires that you use a condom if you do the deed with Satan.

2. No Fornicating in Walk-in Meat Freezers

Apparently, food shopping—or working in a market—really sets the mood in Newcastle, WY, a small town by the South Dakota border. A law there bans couples from having sex inside any grocery store's walk-in meat freezer. Brr!

3. No Sexual Favors to Settle Billiard Debts

If you're playing pool for money at a bar or restaurant in Anniston, AL, an hour south of Birmingham, you better be ready to pay up—in cash—if you lose. It's against the law for any woman to offer sex to the victor instead of forking over moola.  

4. No Consummating Your Marriage During Outdoor Sports

While most brides wouldn’t think to celebrate their nuptials with shooting game or catching fish, if you do it in Oblong, IL, near the Indiana border, you better keep your pants on. It's punishable by law for any couple to have sex while hunting or fishing on their wedding day. (On any other day of your life, though, it's completely legal).

5. No Guns Going Off While You’re Getting Off

In Connorsville, WI, about an hour-and-a-half outside of Minneapolis, it’s illegal for a man to shoot a gun at the same time that his female partner is having an orgasm. Ladies first, gentlemen.

6. No Bestiality with Bigger Creatures Only

It's completely legal to have sex with any animal that weighs less than 40 pounds in Washington State. Animals weighing 40 pounds and over, though, are off-limits, according to state law.

7. No Ambulance Nookie for Women

If you have the misfortune of being in an ambulance in Tremonton, UT, an hour north of Salt Lake City, refrain from having sex with a fellow rider. Intercourse while en route to the hospital can result in a misdemeanor charge for a woman. Her male partner, on the other hand, would face no criminal charges.

8. No Surprising Randy Couples in Cars

It seems Coeur d’Alene, ID’s government wants to spare people the embarrassment of getting caught in the act: A law in this town near the Washington border prohibits police officers from immediately approaching any parked car if they suspect passengers are getting busy inside. Instead, they must drive up behind the vehicle, honk three times and wait approximately two minutes before getting out to investigate.

9., 10. and 11. No Well-Lit Sex, Non-Missionary Intercourse or Tickling

There must have been some shy lawmakers in power at the time when this law was signed: Virginia prohibits any couple from having sex with the lights on. This state also outlaws sex in any position other than missionary, as well as tickling women.

12. No Equine Voyeurs

While Massachusetts acknowledges that rodeo clowns deserve love, too, a state law forbids anyone from recklessly getting it on with one of those performers while the horses are still present. Once the animals have hit the hay, though, sex with a rodeo clown is A-OK. Yee haw! 

via womansday.com

Researchers Uncover Molecular Process in the Brain that Transforms White Fat into Brown Fat

Yale scientists uncover how a molecular process in the brain that known to control eating transforms white fat into brown fat, impacting how much energy we burn and how much weight we can lose.
The results are published in the October 9 issue of the journal Cell.
Obesity is a rising global epidemic. Excess fatty tissue is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, neurological disorders, and cancer. People become overweight and obese when energy intake exceeds energy expenditure, and excess calories are stored in the adipose tissues. The adipose organ is made up of both white and brown fat. While white fat primarily stores energy as triglycerides, brown fat dissipates chemical energy as heat. The more brown fat you have, the more weight you can lose.
It has previously been shown that energy-storing white fat has the capacity to transform into energy-burning “brown-like” fat. In this new study, researchers from the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism, demonstrate that neurons controlling hunger and appetite in the brain control the “browning” of white fat.
Lead author Xiaoyong Yang, associate professor of comparative medicine and physiology at Yale School of Medicine, conducted the study with Tamas Horvath, professor and chair of comparative medicine, and professor of neurobiology and Obstetrics/gynecology at Yale School of Medicine, and their co-authors.
The team stimulated this browning process from the brain in mice and found that it protected the animals from becoming obese on a high-fat diet. The team then studied the molecular changes in hunger-promoting neurons in the hypothalamus and found that the attachment of a unique sugar called “O-GlcNAc” to potassium ion channels acts as a switch to control brain activity to burn fat.
“Our studies reveal white fat “browning” as a highly dynamic physiological process that the brain controls,” said Yang. “This work indicates that behavioral modifications promoted by the brain could influence how the amount of food we eat and store in fat is burned.”
Yang said hunger and cold exposure are two life-history variables during the development and evolution of mammals. “We observed that food deprivation dominates over cold exposure in neural control of white fat browning. This regulatory system may be evolutionarily important as it can reduce heat production to maintain energy balance when we are hungry. Modulating this brain-to-fat connection represents a potential novel strategy to combat obesity and associated illnesses.”
Other authors on the study include Hai-Bin Ruan, Marcelo O. Dietrich, Zhong-Wu Liu, Marcelo R. Zimmer, Min-Dian Li, Jay Prakash Singh, Kaisi Zhang, Ruonan Yin, and Jing Wu.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Diabetes Association, Ellison Medical Foundation, American Heart Association, and CNPq/Brazil.
Publication: Hai-Bin Ruan, et al., “O-GlcNAc Transferase Enables AgRP Neurons to Suppress Browning of White Fat,” Cell, Volume 159, Issue 2, p306–317, 9 October 2014; doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.09.010
Source: Karen N. Peart, Yale University
Image: Michael S. Helfenbein,via http://scitechdaily.com

Yale Biologists Describe DNA’s Security System

In a newly published study, Yale biologists and colleagues describe a key quality control mechanism that protects new cells from inheriting defective nuclear pore complexes.
As befitting life’s blueprint, DNA is surrounded by an elaborate security system that assures crucial information is imparted without error.
The security is provided by a double membrane perforated by protein channels that block unwanted material from entering the nucleus and promote entry of key messengers. The breakdown of these channels, called nuclear pore complexes (NPCs), is associated with some forms of cancer and with aging.


Defective nuclear pore complexes (red) are restricted from being inherited by daughter cells demonstrating a quality control pathway during nuclear pore complex biogenesis.
In a new study appearing in the October 9 issue of the journal Cell, Yale researchers Brant Webster, Patrick Lusk, and colleagues describe a key quality control mechanism that protects new cells from inheriting defective NPCs. In the accompanying movie, defective NPCs are sequestered into a specialized compartment (colored red) that is retained in the mother cell, while each daughter inherits functional NPCs. “It is important to understand how these gatekeepers, which are fundamental to cellular function, are built and maintained,” Lusk said.
Abstract:
The maintenance of nuclear compartmentalization by the nuclear envelope and nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) is essential for cell function; loss of compartmentalization is associated with cancers, laminopathies, and aging. We uncovered a pathway that surveils NPC assembly intermediates to promote the formation of functional NPCs. Surveillance is mediated by Heh2, a member of the LEM (Lap2-emerin-MAN1) family of integral inner nuclear membrane proteins, which binds to an early NPC assembly intermediate, but not to mature NPCs. Heh2 recruits the endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT)—III subunit Snf7 and the AAA-ATPase Vps4 to destabilize and clear defective NPC assembly intermediates. When surveillance or clearance is compromised, malformed NPCs accumulate in a storage of improperly assembled nuclear pore complexes compartment, or SINC. The SINC is retained in old mothers to prevent loss of daughter lifespan, highlighting a continuum of mechanisms to ensure nuclear compartmentalization.
Publication: Brant M. Webster, et al., “Surveillance of Nuclear Pore Complex Assembly by ESCRT-III/Vps4,” Cell, Volume 159, Issue 2, p388–401, 9 October 2014; doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.09.012
Source: Bill Hathaway, Yale University
Image: Brant M. Webster, et al., doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.09.012,via http://scitechdaily.com/

Researchers Show Embryos Receive Parent-Specific Layers of Information

Immunolocalization of isolated and fixed C. elegans male gonads. A) DNA stained with DAPI (blue), HTAS-1 (green), HTZ-1 (red), merged image of HTAS-1 (green), HTZ-1 (red) and DAPI (blue). Scale bar represents 50 µm. B–E) Immunostaining of individual nuclei from late stages of sperm formation (as found in the proximal end of the gonad marked with the dotted line in A). The scale bar represents 2 µm and applies to all panels in B–F. B) Histone H3 dimethylated at lysine 9 (H3K9me2), which marks the X chromosome (white arrows). C) HTZ-1. D) HTAS-1. Yellow arrows mark regions of under-representation of HTAS-1 and HTZ-1 that are not the X chromosome. E) HTZ-1 and HTAS-1 are detectable immediately after meiotic divisions as sperm chromatin condenses. Contrast-adjusted black and white images of DNA, HTZ-1, and HTAS-1 staining of the early spermatid nuclei shown in panels C and D that show HTZ-1 and HTAS-1 are detectable. See Figure S2 for contrast-adjusted images of later spermatid nuclei. F) SPCH proteins (SPCH-1, 2, 3) (green) are detectable on DNA as sperm DNA condenses for meiotic divisions. Levels of SPCH proteins increase dramatically after meiosis, particularly around spermatid DNA.

New research from San Francisco State University sheds light on the multilayered process of how a sperm and egg pass along information needed for successful reproduction, revealing that embryos receive parent-specific layers of information.
The information that interprets the genetic code in a new embryo differs depending on whether it comes from the father or mother, researchers at San Francisco State University have found.
The research, detailed in an article published in the journal PLOS Genetics, sheds light on the multilayered process of how a sperm and egg pass along information needed for successful reproduction. Though one layer is the DNA code that is transferred, the new study identifies information not encoded by DNA, a so-called “epigenetic” layer of information that helps the cell interpret the genetic code.
Scientists have known these “epigenetic marks,” which influence the developmental plan of new embryos, are created by biologically modifying the proteins, called histones, that are responsible for tightly coiling DNA inside cells. But the new study shows how distinctive the marks from a sperm cell are from the information coming from an oocyte, or egg cell.
“We were able to document an array of marks from dad that are different than what is passed over from mom,” said Diana Chu, an associate professor of biology at SF State. “This research opens up new avenues for scientists to investigate. What is the role of these different marks? Why are they different?”
Chu and her colleagues at SF State and the Scripps Research Institute examined sperm and embryos of the C. elegans worm to identify which histone marks, which include histone variants and modifications, were unique to sperm and track them during the formation of new sperm cells and new embryos. They found that the number of histone modifications present within sperm is 2.4 times less than the number present within embryos, indicating a widespread erasure of epigenetic marks when new sperm cells are formed. But the erasure is incomplete: Researchers identified one histone variant and six histone modifications — and there are likely many more — that are retained in sperm and ultimately passed on to a new embryo, potentially helping it develop properly.
“If the DNA is the book, these variants and modifications are the bookmarks,” Chu said. “They can help cells read the book.”
The discovery adds another dimension for scientists to explore when studying the complex process of how genetic information is passed on from parents to children. Such research has major health implications, Chu added, as developmental and behavioral disorders that may not manifest themselves until years or even decades into an individual’s life can originate in the early stages of embryotic development.
“These various levels of genetic and epigenetic information work in combination,” she said. “If you don’t understand all of them, you can’t understand the complexity of how cells divide properly and how they create a human being who can function at many different levels for a long period of time.”
Further research will identify additional epigenetic marks that are unique to sperm, as well as study more closely the role and features of a specific histone variant, termed HTAS-1.
“The specification and global reprogramming of histone epigenetic marks during gamete formation and early embryo development in C. elegans” by Mark Samson, Margaret M. Jow, Catherine C.L. Wong, Colin Fitzpatrick, Aaron Aslanian, Israel Saucedo, Rodrigo Estrada, Takashi Ito, Robin Park, John R. Yates III and Diana S. Chu was published in the Oct. 9 edition of PLOS Genetics. The research was funded through several grants from the National Science Foundation.
Publication: Mark Samson, et al., “The Specification and Global Reprogramming of Histone Epigenetic Marks during Gamete Formation and Early Embryo Development in C. elegans,” PLOS Genetics, 2014; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1004588
Source: San Francisco State University
Image: Samson M, et al., PLoS Genet 10(10): e1004588. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004588.vi http://scitechdaily.com

Researchers Discover a New Signaling Pathway to Combat Excess Body Weight

Dyed red lipid droplets that can be stored during differentiation .

An international team of researchers has discovered a new signaling molecule capable of activating brown fat cells.
The number of overweight persons is greatly increasing worldwide – and as a result is the risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke, diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease. For this reason, many people dream of an efficient method for losing weight. An international team of researchers led by Professor Alexander Pfeifer from the University Hospital Bonn, have now come one step closer to this goal. The scientists discovered a new way to stimulate brown fat and thus burn energy from food: The body’s own adenosine activates brown fat and “browns” white fat. The results are now being published in the journal Nature.
“Not all fat is equal,” says Professor Alexander Pfeifer from the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University Hospital Bonn. Humans have two different types of fat: undesirable white fat cells which form bothersome “love handles”, for example, as well as brown fat cells, which act like a desirable heater to convert excess energy into heat. “If we are able to activate brown fat cells or to convert white fat cells into brown ones, it might be possible to simply melt excess fat away” reports the pharmacologist.
The group of Prof. Pfeifer together with an international team from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, as well as from the Helmholtz-Center Dresden-Rossendorf and the University of Düsseldorf now discovered a new signaling molecule capable of activating brown fat cells: adenosine. Adenosine is typically released during stress. Crucial for transmitting the adenosine signal is the adenosine receptor A2A.
Adenosine activates brown adipose tissue
“If adenosine binds to this receptor in brown fat cells, fat burning is significantly stimulated,” reports Dr. Thorsten Gnad from Prof. Pfeifer’s team. It was previously thought not possible for adenosine to activate brown fat. Several studies with rats and hamsters demonstrated that adenosine blocks brown fat.
However, the researchers from the University of Bonn were not mislead by these previous findings. In contrast, using brown fat cells removed from humans during surgery, the scientists investigated the signaling pathway for fat activation using adenosine. The results showed that rats and hamsters react differently than humans in this regard. “The brown fat in mice on the other hand behaves just as in humans,” summarizes Prof. Pfeifer.
“Browning” of white fat by adenosine
In addition, the research team investigated the possibility that adenosine transforms white fat cells into brown fat cells – a process termed “browning”. White fat cells normally cannot be induced to burn excess fat by adenosine, as they simply lack the A2A receptor. For this reason, the team of scientists transferred the A2A receptor gene from brown fat cells to white fat cells in mice. Consequently, the white fat cells also have A2A receptors and start browning and burning energy.
Clinical application is still far off
As a result, it was possible for the researchers from the University of Bonn to comprehend the significance of adenosine for brown cells in mice and humans for the first time. “Through the administration of adenosine-like substances, the mice actually lost weight,” reports Prof. Pfeifer. However, many questions in this regard still need to be investigated. For this reason, clinical application is still far off.
Publication: Thorsten Gnad, et al., “Adenosine activates brown adipose tissue and recruits beige adipocytes via A_2A receptors,” Nature, 2014; doi:10.1038/nature13816
Source:University of Bonn
Image: AG Alexander Pfeifer/UKB
via http://scitechdaily.com/