Spitting for science: ASU researchers use saliva to study human bonding

Spitting is a lot easier than giving a blood sample, but it can still provide useful information about a person's hormone levels. Scientists know that people in close relationships, such as mothers and babies and romantic couples, show a correlation in hormone levels.

Now, researchers at Arizona State University are studying saliva to find out if hormones also work in concert among a college marching band. Can making music with other people bond us on a biological level? Researchers from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts are working together at the intersection of biology, social sciences and the arts.

Read more about work at the Interdisciplinary Institute for Salivary Bioscience Research in CLAS Magazine.

Produced by Alexander D. Chapin and Perla Farias