This distinction, between finding someone attractive and desiring him or her, between liking and

wanting, "is all happening in an area of the mammalian brain that takes care of most basic
functions, like eating, drinking, eye movements, all at an unconscious level, and I don't think
anyone expected this part of the brain to be so specialized," Dr. Brown said.
The intoxication of new love mellows with time, of course, and the brain scan findings reflect
some evidence of this change, Dr. Fisher said.
In an earlier functional M.R.I. study of romance, published in 2000, researchers at University
College London monitored brain activity in young men and women who had been in relationships
for about two years. The brain images, also taken while participants looked at photos of their
beloved, showed activation in many of the same areas found in the new study - but significantly
less so, in the region correlated with passionate love, she said.
In the new study, the researchers also saw individual differences in their group of smitten lovers,
based on how long the participants had been in the relationships. Compared with the students who
were in the first weeks of a new love, those who had been paired off for a year or more showed
significantly more activity in an area of the brain linked to long-term commitment.
Last summer, scientists at Emory University in Atlanta reported that injecting a ratlike animal
called a vole with a single gene turned promiscuous males into stay-at-home dads - by activating
precisely the same area of the brain where researchers in the new study found increased activity
over time.
"This is very suggestive of attachment processes taking place," Dr. Brown said. "You can almost
imagine a time where instead of going to Match.com you could have a test to find out whether
you're an attachment type or not."
One reason new love is so heart-stopping is the possibility, the ever-present fear, that the feeling
may not be entirely requited, that the dream could suddenly end.
In a follow-up experiment, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Aron and Dr. Brown have carried out brain scans on 17
other young men and women who recently were dumped by their lovers. As in the new love
study, the researchers compared two sets of images, one taken when the participants were looking
at a photo of a friend, the other when looking at a picture of their ex.
Although they are still sorting through the images, the investigators have noticed one preliminary
finding: increased activation in an area of the brain related to the region associated with
passionate love. "It seems to suggest what the psychological literature, poetry and people have
long noticed: that being dumped actually does heighten romantic love, a phenomenon I call
frustration-attraction," Dr. Fisher said in an e-mail message.
One volunteer in the study was Suzanna Katz, 22, of New York, who suffered through a breakup
with her boyfriend three years ago. Ms. Katz said she became hyperactive to distract herself after
the split, but said she also had moments of almost physical withdrawal, as if weaning herself from
a drug.
"It had little to do with him, but more with the fact that there was something there, inside myself,
a hope, a knowledge that there's someone out there for you, and that you're capable of feeling this
way, and suddenly I felt like that was being lost," she said in an interview.
And no wonder. In a series of studies, researchers have found that, among other processes, new
love involves psychologically internalizing a lover, absorbing elements of the other person's
opinions, hobbies, expressions, character, as well as sharing one's own. "The expansion of the self
happens very rapidly, it's one of the most exhilarating experiences there is, and short of
threatening our survival it is one thing that most motivates us," said Dr. Aron, of SUNY, a coauthor of the study.
To lose all that, all at once, while still in love, plays havoc with the emotional, cognitive and
deeper reward-driven areas of the brain. But the heightened activity in these areas inevitably

settles down. And the circuits in the brain related to passion remain intact, the researchers say intact and capable in time of flaring to life with someone new.

Pelham Man Pleads Guilty in a 1982 Killing in Kansas

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By MAREK FUCHS
Published: February 15, 2006
For two decades, the police in Olathe, Kan., were convinced that a male student at the local Bible
college had conspired with the secretary to the dean of students to kill her husband.
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John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star, via Associated Press
Mark Mangelsdorf left a Kansas courthouse on Monday with his wife, Kristina, after pleading
guilty to second-degree murder.
The evidence proved elusive, though, and the student, Mark Mangelsdorf, the president of the
student body at the time, went on to get an M.B.A. from Harvard and assume top posts at several
major corporations.
The secretary, Melinda Harmon, moved to Ohio, married a dentist, had two children and became
active in her church and her children's school.
But after years of denials, Mr. Mangelsdorf, 45, of Pelham, N.Y., pleaded guilty to second-degree
murder in a Kansas court on Monday in the bludgeoning of David Harmon. He faces a sentence
of 10 to 20 years, though prosecutors said he could be eligible for parole in about 5 years.
The former Mrs. Harmon, now Mrs. Raisch, told the police at the time of the killing in 1982 that
her husband had been beaten to death by two black men who broke into their home. But when the
police dusted off the case file in 2001 and visited Mrs. Raisch in Ohio, they got the break they
needed.
In an interview with investigators, Mrs. Raisch changed her story. She implicated Mr.
Mangelsdorf and acknowledged having a nonsexual but "emotionally inappropriate" relationship
with him at MidAmerica Nazarene University.
Mrs. Raisch was convicted of first-degree murder last May. Shortly before her trial, Mr.
Mangelsdorf was also charged with murder and spent a week in jail before being released on a
$300,000 bond. He adamantly denied having any involvement in the killing and said he would
never accept a plea deal.

But in the court hearing on Monday, Mr. Mangelsdorf admitted to participating in the murder of
Mr. Harmon, a friend. He struck a deal with prosecutors, who agreed to drop charges of firstdegree murder.
"I don't think most people are capable of killing others," said Paul J. Morrison, the Johnson
County district attorney, who went to the murder scene as a young assistant prosecutor and
recalled it as one of the bloodiest he had visited in his two decades in law enforcement. "But this
does stand for how some humans can seal off horrible things and bury them. I don't think
everyone can. But these two could."
Prosecutors said they were prepared to argue at Mr. Mangelsdorf's trial that he and Mrs. Raisch
had become romantically involved and had conspired to murder Mr. Harmon so she would not
have to face the stigma of a divorce. They contended that the two devised a plan in which Mr.
Mangelsdorf would kill Mr. Harmon and Mrs. Raisch would tell the police that he had been
murdered by two black intruders.
They carried out their plan in the early hours of Feb. 28, 1982, according to the authorities. Mr.
Mangelsdorf attacked Mr. Harmon with a crow bar while he slept and struck him in the head at
least a dozen times, the police said.
Law enforcement officials were skeptical of their story, but they lacked evidence to pursue
charges against them.
After attending Harvard, Mr. Mangelsdorf worked for a time as the chief operating officer of
Omni Services, a uniform provider that was acquired by the Cintas Corporation, and was also
hired to run a carbonated beverage division at Parmalat, the huge Italian food and dairy company.
He has recently been working as a consultant.
Despite his guilty plea, Mr. Mangelsdorf remains free on bond and can return to his three-story
home in Pelham, which he bought in 2003 for $1.3 million. He lives there with his wife, Kristina,
the head of marketing for PepsiCo's diet beverage division, and their two children, one of whom
was born in December. He has three children from a previous marriage. In an e-mail message
yesterday, Mr. Mangelsdorf declined to comment, saying that "with sentencing approaching and
with a desire to be granted parole at the earliest opportunity, there is no explanation that we can
provide that doesn't carry downside risk."

The Milk of Evolution

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NYTIMES
Published: December 14, 2006
Evolution is a process that most of us associate with a geological time scale the slow
elucidation of life over the last 3.5 billion years. We also tend to assume that the most

recent signs of continuing evolution must be happening in species with short life spans
and rapid reproductive rates.
A team of scientists has now discovered that an important human genetic trait a
tolerance in adults for the milk sugar called lactose might have developed in several
East African ethnic groups 2,700 to 6,800 years ago. That is astonishingly recent.
It may also be the first genetic example of what researchers call convergent evolution in
humans. In other words, lactose tolerance among African raisers of livestock arose
independently of the same adaptive trait in northern European pastoralists. But there is
something still more surprising about this discovery. The genetic change came about
because of cultural change. The shift to cattle raising some 9,000 years ago gave an
immediate survival advantage to adults who could digest milk, an ability infants usually
lost as they aged.
We are used to the idea that species evolve because of changes in their natural
environment. But part of the natural environment of humans is culture itself, and it is
striking to think that genetic adaptation in humans has been driven, at least in part, by
how humans have chosen to live. The dynamism of human culture has always seemed to
move faster than evolution itself, but this discovery suggests otherwise. To understand
this about ourselves is to realize how little we know about the long-term effects of the
ways we choose to live.
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