 Brilliant's audio presents the unabridged recording of the Moral Molecule, The Source of Love and Prosperity by Paul Jayzak. Performed by Paul Jayzak. Introduction Vampire Wedding It was a lovely day for a wedding. The English Sun peeking from behind English clouds as the guests gathered in their finest. The ceremony was going to be at Hunsham Court, a Victorian manor house out in Devon. And it was set to begin in ten minutes. I was supposed to have shown up an hour ago. I parked my rented Vauxhall in the gravel courtyard, left the engine running, jumped out in my lap coat for an immediate reconnoiter, then commandeered a guest to help me carry in the 150 pound centrifuge and 30 kilos of dry ice I'd brought with me in the car. With a second trip, I carried in the syringes, 156 pre-level test tubes, tourniquets, alcohol preps, and band-aids that had shipped from California. The plan I'd worked out with Linda Gettys, the bride, was to take two samples. One blood draw immediately before the vows, and one immediately after, from a cross-section of friends and family in attendance. Within the wedding party itself, Linda's father was the only holdout. The mother of the groom had been ill, so he gave her a pass. Now taking blood at weddings is not a long-standing tradition in this part of England, or anywhere else that I know of. In this case, the bride was a writer for the new scientist who'd been following my research. She was also known for throwing herself into her story's gonzo style. One day, out of the blue, she invited me to fly across the Atlantic to see her get married, but it wasn't because we'd become such close pals. She wanted me to run an experiment to illustrate a point. Just for fun, she wanted to see if the emotional uplift of her wedding would alter the guest's level of oxytocin, not to be confused with the often-abused painkiller, oxycontin, the chemical messenger I've been setting for the past several years. Oxytocin is known primarily as a female reproductive hormone, and usually it's associated less with wedding vows and champagne than with what, in an earlier time, often happened nine months after. Oxytocin controls contractions during labor, which is where many women encounter it as pitocin, the commercially available synthetic version doctors inject in expectant mothers to induce delivery. Oxytocin is also responsible for the calm, focused attention mothers relish on their babies while breastfeeding. Then again, oxytocin is well-represented, we hope, on wedding nights because it helps create the warm glow both women and men feel during sex, or a massage, or even a hug. Linda hadn't reached out to me because of anything. Sample complete. Ready to continue?