If Valentine’s Day didn’t work out the way you planned last week, consider incorporating science and technology into your search for someone special.

New additions to the online dating scene focus on science in addition to the traditional personality-matching sites. One site, Scientificmatch.com, launched in December and considers users’ DNA in addition to their personalities, proximity and ages, the site’s co-founder Chris Holz said.

LOVE AS A SCIENCE

After signing up on Scientificmatch.com, the company sends each user a DNA collection kit. After users take a cotton swab of the inside of the mouth and mail it back to the lab, scientists will analyze the sample and upload the informaton to the site. Matches are automatically made based on immune system genes, personality and personal preference.

“Nature wants us to breed with others that have different immune system genes than ours,” said Holz. “This creates healthier children because they have a more diverse, more robust immune system. So, nature has endowed us with chemical attraction to those with different immune system genes.”

Validity for this argument comes from the sweaty t-shirt experiments in the 1990s, Holz said. Scientists asked male students from European colleges to wear the same t-shirt several days in a row, then asked female students to sniff the shirts and rate them for attractiveness. Female students found the shirts of men with immune system genes very different to theirs the most attractive.

According to Scientificmatch.com, people with different immune system genes are more likely to love each other’s natural body odor, enjoy a more satisfying sex life, experience a higher rate of orgasms for women, be more fertile, have healthier children and have a reduced chance of cheating.

ONLINE SAFETY AND ACCURACY

In addition to its unique, genetic-based matchmaking capabilities, Holz said Scientificmatch.com does background checks on potential users, excluding anyone convicted of a felony, violent crime, sex crime, Internet crime or identity theft. The site also checks marital status, age and recent bankruptcy records, and only displays “perfect matches,” Holz said. However, the site does not edit profiles after they’ve been created.

“We don’t want to present members with a false image of others,” said Holz. “If a user wants to post inappropriate pictures of himself then it’s important that matches see the type of person he is.”

Currently, Scientificmatch.com is only available for Boston and Providence singles.

“I’ve always been familiar with that area,” Holz said. “Also, it’s a great singles market. A very educated market and since this is so new we want to make sure people understand.”

Although Scientificmatch.com is geographically available to Boston University students, Holz said his site does not attract many college students.

“We attract people who are looking for a more serious relationship,” he said. “College students are usually seeking casual dating and aren’t willing to pay for such a premium service.”

A lifetime membership with Scientificmatch.com costs about $2,000.

THE COLLEGE CROWD

The founders of online dating site OKCupid are also from the Boston area. The site launched in 2004 and is now international.

“Because we’re free, we’re really popular among college-age students,” co-founder Tom Yagan said. “We don’t pay for things online. People our age aren’t used to paying for things online. We have a real appeal to the under-25 crowd because we’re free.”

Yagan said college students also visit the site for personality quizzes and daily humor.

Although not based on DNA, Yagan said OKCupid is more science-based than similar sites.

“I would argue that our site is pretty scientific when it comes to matching,” Yagan said. “All the founders are math majors and don’t know that much about dating. But we’re really good about making formulas for the dating site.”

Matches on OKCupid are made based on scientific matching algorithms. The site asks users to answer a variety of questions honestly for themselves and then to choose how they would want their partner to answer. Users then rank the question’s importance to them on a scale of one to five.

“We then sort the users based on your match percentage, on how compatible we think you are,” Yagan said. “It’s purely scientific statistics.”

Yagan said he believes OKCupid has a better chance of success than other sites because its process is similar to the internal selection process people go through when deciding whom to date. OKCupid matches people who share the same interests and values.

“We don’t make any guesses,” Yagan said.

Yagan said sites such as eHarmony.com base matches on what personality traits a psychologist thinks will make a good relationship. He also doubts the validity of sites that match based on criteria such as body odor.

“It’s not that they may not be right,” Yagan said. “But when you decide if you like someone, body odor is very low on the list. There is no good scientific way to figure out who think is attractive.”

MEASURING SUCCESS

Yagain said it’s hard to gauge success rates on dating sites because once two people start dating exclusively, they usually take their pages down. It’s impossible to know what happens with their relationship unless they email the site with a thank you note. Yagan said thousands of couples have e-mailed his site saying they got married.

Another difficulty with forming a success rate is that people determine success differently, Yagan said.

“For some people, a success story is just getting laid,” Yagan said. “Last week a girl emailed us saying she had the best sex of her life, so for her that’s a success story.”

TIME AFTER TIME

Dan Abalon, co-founder of free site SpeedDate.com, said his site is “different from traditional dating sites although it’s not like the scientific ones” because are no lengthy profiles or extensive questions necessary for matches. Users simply go on lots of three-minute video chat dates, and click “yes” or “no” after each date. If both click “yes,” users can contact each other and move forward as they please. If either dater says “no,” they both move on to the next date.

“The first thing you do is meet people,” Abalon said. “It allows you to meet a lot of people in a short amount of time. We trust users to decide who they get along with.”

The site has a Facebook application attracts a high concentration of college students, Abalon said.

“It’s mainly for people who don’t want to spend a lot of time filling out profiles and questionnaires,” he said, “but want to get down to business and meet people. Because that’s how you’ll decide if you like someone.”

STUDENT STORIES

Nathalie Medina, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, said she has explored eHarmony.com mainly to do the surveys. Although she said she uses the site mainly for fun and not to actively seeking a relationship, she doubts she would use science-based sites such as Scientificmatch.com.

“I don’t know if [dating web sites] work very well because there is so much that we don’t know,” Medina said. “I know they test [their formulas] on rats and stuff and did tests with the smells, but I don’t think that’s enough to determine who you’re going to fall in love with. Its kind of fishy — kind of a weird way to meet someone.”

Even though University of Tulsa junior Danielle Matheny filled out an entire match profile on OKCupid, she said she did not meet anyone worth dating.

“You get very weird people and people who are kind of sleazy,” Matheny said. “And sometimes you get people you can actually talk to for a while. You get messaged by a lot of people, especially if you’re a girl.”

Although the site was unsuccessful for Matheny, she said she thinks the site could work for some people.

“I feel like it personalizes people really well and answers questions really well,” she said.

Although she said she feels confident in OKCupid’s matching, she would not trust a science-based match site such as scientificmatch.com.

“I think that’s sort of weird,” Matheny said. “It seems a little strange to kind of force [attraction] over the Internet.”