Fast and Effective: Love Relieves Pain

Stanford University researchers have identified a new, low-cost pain reliever with few unpleasant side effects: it's called love. The BBC reports that scientists at the school used "functional magnetic resonance imaging" to measure activity that shows the perception of pain in the brains of 15 students who were in the first nine months of a romantic relationship, which psychologists consider the first phase of intense love. While their brains were scanned, the students were shown pictures of their lovers and pictures of other friends.The researchers found that viewing the picture of their beloved reduced perceptions of pain much more than looking at the image of the acquaintance.

Read more from the BBC.