The Science of Sex is a publication created and produced by Anne Machalinski, Aili McConnon and Christie Nicholson. It is our master's thesis for Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

We've been amazed by how radically science has changed our daily lives during the last decade. We wanted to find a topic that would both show this accelerated change and engage people. So we decided to investigate the science of love and mating. We also decided our medium should reflect our message, so we chose the Web. We wanted to use video, graphics and text to tell stories about how science shapes us in ways that are amazing and scary.

We interviewed more than 100 people. Our reporting took us to Pennsylvania, California and the three-dimensional virtual world Second Life, where we reported with the help of our “avatars," digital personas that walk, dance and fly.

Even after working on this project for more than four months, we are still blown away by the interaction between science and human behavior as it relates to attraction, mating and relationships.

We hope you will be as surprised, entertained and, ultimately, inspired as we are.

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Our heartfelt thanks first and foremost to our advisors Nancy Sharkey of the New York Times and Duy Linh Tu of Resolution Seven for their constant guidance, invaluable advice and unflagging enthusiasm.

Thanks also to those who gave valuable input along the way: Cara Quinn, Robert Lynch, Kathryn O'Kane, Salah Mason, Jenna Park, Mike New, Jessica Roberts, Julia Lintern, Jeff Martini, Ellen Bennett, Riccardo Vecchio, Dr. David Adamson, Geoffrey Adamson, Phil Wahba, Allen Bain, Claire Stringer and Shea Caruthers.