Unkindest cut? Maybe not

Jack Ruttan

Circumcised men are more sensitive than previously believed. Not that anyone ever accused them of being more likely than their un-snipped brothers to forget birthdays, fail to notice haircuts or prefer Dirty Harry over Dirty Dancing. However, when movies of a somewhat more risqué nature are on offer, circumcised and uncircumcised men were just as quick to spring to attention. The findings seem to put paid to the myth that losing the foreskin means losing sexual sensitivity.

"It was interesting how well accepted this notion was, despite the fact that there was no empirical basis for it," says Kimberly Payne, PhD'06.

Payne recently compared two groups of males, both trimmed and au naturel, between the ages of 18 and 45. Participants were fitted with sensors both on their arm and on the relevant organ to gauge genital sensitivity to touch and pain. They were then given DVD goggles and shown alternating films with erotic and more innocuous content.

Payne and her McGill research team found little difference in how the men responded to the images. According to Payne, research involving direct measurement of penile sensation had never been done before on sexually aroused subjects.

Payne, now a clinical psychologist in Ontario, conducted the study while working under the supervision of psychology professor Irv Binik, director of the Sex and Couple Therapy Service at the McGill University Health Centre.

She cautions against reading too much into her results, which were published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

"This study only measures one sensation, but it does not refute the idea that there may be some differences at some level. No one can deny the anatomical differences between a circumcised and uncircumcised penis."

Mark Reynolds

Putting Some Wow into the Classroom

Owen Egan

In spite of the flames, sledgehammers and underwater exploits, no one was harmed at the recent launch of McGill's new Winners of Wonderment Lab.

With all the panache of a circus ringmaster, Professor Brian Alters led a crowd of high school students through an unusual display of buoyancy, showing how a single inflated Ziploc baggie can make a 180-pound weight float. The weight, incidentally, was Jason Wiles, manager of McGill's Evolution Education Centre, wearing a soggy but snappy suit and tie in a 400-gallon tank. Later, Alters demonstrated gravity with a nifty hammer experiment, and showed off a levitating train.

And did we mention a handful of flaming bubbles?

All the flash and dash was about more than Alters' flair for the dramatic.

His new WOW Lab aims to captivate students by showcasing "the crazy edge of science," appealing to their sense of wonder in a way that traditional teaching rarely does.

"How better to increase the science literacy of our children," he asks, "than to increase the 'wow' of math and science learning?"

Thanks to an $800,000 gift from Imperial Oil, Alters and his team of chemists, physicists, biologists and education researchers will spend the next five years developing dazzling experiments and exciting teaching tools. Everything they create will be available free "to any teacher, anywhere.

"This is not a profit-making venture," he says. "This is a venture to improve the 'wow' of science, to hopefully inspire students to study science."

Judging from the students captivated by his performance, Alters is heading in the right direction.

Alters — who's been known to teach from the water tank as well — holds McGill's Tomlinson Chair in Science Education. He believes McGill is a great place for the lab.

"We have incredibly talented people we can call upon here at McGill. If we can't figure something out, we can waddle over to the chemistry department and find a professor who's an expert on whatever question we need an answer to."

Mark Ordonselli