Jim Windolf explores the science behind adorable animals:

“It’s part of our DNA to react to cute things,” says Meg Frost, who
founded Cute Overload in 2005. “What makes me post certain pictures is
if I have an audible reaction—a squeal—when I see the picture. I’m kind
of annoyed at myself for having no control over thinking these things
are so cute. [...]

Specifically, [biologist Melanie] Glocker’s series of experiments demonstrated that the act
of looking at baby pictures stirs up an ancient part of the brain
called the nucleus accumbens. “It’s in the midbrain,” Glocker says, with a slight Teutonic accent,
“which is an evolutionarily older part of the brain involved in reward
processing. This region has also been shown to be activated by a
variety of rewarding stimuli, including sexual stimuli, food stimuli,
and drug stimuli.” Dr. Glocker is too much of a scientist to say so, but her experiments more or less prove that cuteness is physically addicting.

FU Penguin fights the urge to cuddle with the cute dog above:

This dog's name is Snapdragon, which not coinci