Image: Illustration by Noma Bar
In Brief
- Evidence suggests that humans unconsciously exchange chemical messages that help to synchronize women’s menstrual cycles, signify the presence of kin, and convey moods such as stress or fear.
- The signals may be akin to the pheromones found in hundreds of animal species, including mammals.
- Researchers are isolating the compounds secreted by humans and attempting to decode their physiological and psychological effects.
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The moment that started martha mcclintock’s scientific career was a whim of youth. Even, she recalls, a ridiculous moment. It is summer, 1968, and she is a Wellesley College student attending a workshop at the Jackson Laboratory in Maine. A lunch-table gathering of established researchers is talking about how mice appear to synchronize their ovary cycles. And 20-year-old McClintock, sitting nearby, pipes up with something like, “Well, don’t you know? Women do that, too.”
“I don’t remember the exact words,” she says now, sitting relaxed and half-amused in her well-equipped laboratory at the University of Chicago. “But everyone turned and stared.” It is easy to imagine her in that distant encounter—the same direct gaze, the same friendly face and flyaway hair. Still, the lunch-table group is not charmed; it informs her that she does not know what she is talking about.
This article was originally published with the title The Scent of Your Thoughts.
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11 Comments
Add CommentI can recognize my biological children by scent alone and my grandchildren to a less extent . I have even id'ed a friend's 3 day bloated body by their personal body order riding on top of the smell of decompostion. Do a little work and I"m sure you'll find that human males can tell by scent if a female is sexually mature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou must have a special ability.I know most people don't smell very well, and would never be able to know their child by smell alone. Are you blind?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read a study several years ago that revealed that many women in the study could identify their babies amongst others by their smell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a male who can certainly smell the many pleasant and some not so pleasant aromas of women.
When something forgotten comes near—you intuit its savour so clear—so deep from the sea that contains us, of memories still to share. It is nature in drift, the spirit, who'll berth the day beyond fear, to appease as the streams of essence in sentience whirl the surface of all we ever desire and ever were ware.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have met many modern women who are not afraid to state absolutely that women sync their menstrual cycles when they are together a lot such as in an office environment or sharing apartments. It did not in the least surprise me. Humans are after all...apes. It is hilarious that people somehow want themselves not to be what they are..animals like rats, zebras, elephants, flies and butterflies...It is what it is...get used to it and that includes scientists who are blind to their own realities and most especially to the wacho religious folks who imagine that they are "special" when in fact the only thing special about them is that they are ignorant when all around them are realities based upon scientific evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI taught biology in school, and I was turned on by the sweat of muscular female students coming into my class fresh from gym. Showering after gym went the way of hula hoops long ago. Those pheromones - mmm mmm good. Of course I never acted on it or I'd be writing this from jail.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBlonde women apparently secrete a slightly different mix of especially yummy pheromones than other women do, and while I can't say I can consciously smell the difference I definitely notice the effects on me and can unequivocally state that this gentleman prefers blondes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBottle blondes don't count of course, they are mere counterfeits and kinda tacky too, I wish women would stop trying to be something they're not and learn to be happy with their natural hair color which is always more attractive than roots that don't match.
I've known parents that have identified their children by breathing pattern and by scent. I can't do either but some people can.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article also remind me that many supposed "great minds" are as dumb as stumps due to their personal bigotries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuman pheromones are funny in that they get little or no respect in most scientific circles. Yet here, as McClintock did, is a testable physical device for causing human behavior. In my own, limited work (no funds for large double-blind cross-over clinical trials), pheromones appear to be a miracle drug. My anecdotes suggest that one human pheromone, the facial skin surface lipid of men of father age, is a broad-spectrum medical treatment for thrill-seeking (crime, drug addiction, unwanted perversions). The healthy adult male facial skin surface lipid 'kissing daddy's face' pheromone is picked up by a man's children when they kiss his face. Likely due to differing metabolic/neuronal pathways (alcohol is broken down by liver enzymes), alcoholism is mostly unaffected by pheromone treatment. The part of the brain that alcoholism affects is only tangentially an area of pheromone influence. One dose of 150-250 mg of the father facial skin surface lipid by mouth provides permanent (OK, 1987 to present) relief of even the most obdurate cases. We are now giving it away to cure criminals, delinquents, perverts (unwanted homosexuality, child molesters and 'other' depravity), and heroin or crack cocaine addiction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee:
http://tinyurl.com/4ys8aks
Nicholson, B. 1984; Does kissing aid human bonding by semiochemical addiction? British Journal of Dermatology 111(5):623-627.
Nicholson, B. 2011: Exocrinology The Science of Love 2nd Edition Human Pheromones in Criminology, Psychiatry, and Medicine.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051AN5XI
BBC-TV interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeD6JtqbSbY
typical anecdote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVJbRaCVj20
Oops, I forgot to mention that the pheromone has instantly cured runaway behavior, too, and both grades and ambition increase dramatically after taking the pheromone by mouth on chewing gum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResistance to infection appears to gets better, improvements have been noticed in Alzheimer's patients (recovery of sense of humor and better memory), and some autoimmune problems being reported as solved (hypothyroidism & epilepsy).