OK, I’m about to discuss a short scene from last night’s episode of “Mad Men,” so if you haven’t watch it yet — oh my God, you have to watch it!!! — you may want to stop reading. Are we all good now? Good. Now that we can speak freely, first, how awesome was Joan’s big moment last night when she finally gave Dr. Rape what he had coming? I cheered! And then I rewound and watched it several times over. If you don’t have the show recorded, luckily NYMag.com created an animated GIF.

I remember being a little girl and hearing my mother use the term “soul mates.”

“What is ‘soul mates’?” I asked.

“It’s beshert,” she said.

“Be-what?”

“It’s meant to be,” she explained.

Or so says scientists who studied the brain scans of couples who had been together for 20 years versus couples who had recently fallen in love. They found that “one in 10 of the mature couples exhibited the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as people commonly do in the early stages of a relationship.” In other words, that “spark” that couples typically feel at the beginning of dating continues to exist for at least 20 years. These couples were dubbed “swans” by the scientists because the birds mate for life (as do foxes, lobsters, and penguins). [Times Online]