We haven't had much in the way of science here for a while, so today is the day we do some catching up.

Starting off with some encouraging news for moms and dads of the older persuasion, this report letting us know that pre- and post-menopausal women are equally responsive to most sexual desire cues ... something to take into account when you're thinking of adopting as an older parent, since you're certainly not over it and a little one does make for a bit of a wrinkle in the sheets of lovin'.

Hey! I knew that!

I did not, however, know about the assessment tool used for establishing this: the Cues for Sexual Desire Scale (CSDS). Okay.

What this tool found was that most studies have focused on the negatives of menopause, but it turns out that the positives are important, too, and can add quite a zip to our rusting old zippers. As the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sexual Medicine says, "Perhaps maturity in sexual relationships, unlike the traditional jokes of waning sexuality with age, and fewer daily demands mean, in fact, older is better when it comes to love and emotional bonding cues."

I like the sound of that. Now the problem is how to get the kids out of our beds! The little buggers do dampen the romance, don't they?

And how about offering a tipple of vino to our significant others to keep them healthy? This report tells us that men who drink an average of 4 to 7 classes of red wine per week are only 52% as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as those that don't.

Even low amounts seemed to help, and for every additional glass of red wine per week, the relative risk declined by 6%.

And since we're on healthy drinks, how about skim milk ... straight from the cow? Yes, that's now possible.

Scientists in New Zealand have bred a cow that makes skim milk, and they're saying that soon there will be whole herds of them.

I get a mental image of a peaceful hillside covered in placid bovines that all but disappear when they turn sideways ... but that's just how my mind works. Then, pea-sized little speck of gray matter that it is, it starts drifting into territory that wonders how soon a squeeze and squirt will result in chocolate or strawberry milk, and what those cows will look like.

I've never seen a purple cow
Perhaps I'll never see on
But I can tell you here and now
I'd rather see than be one.

... Ogden Nash

Enough silliness for one day ...