Sunday, August 20, 2006

"Horniness in a Perfume Bottle"
I can remember the days when a perfume was marketed that "claimed" to have androgenic pheromones in its odour. It sort of worked on one occasion when I was a "roadie" for a band and found one woman crawling all over me in public claiming that she "liked the smell of construction workers". Never seemed to work so visibly on any other occasion. That men's' cologne has been off the market for years, probably because it never worked in almost all situations. I suspect that the "secret ingredient" was boiled down tomcat piss or something similar.
In the august 3rd, 2006 edition of 'Nature Magazine' there is an article in the news section entitled 'Mouse Data Hint At Human Pheromones'. The article basically describes research (described further in this issue of Nature) that says that there are genetically encoded odour receptors in mice that respond to mouse pheromones that have human analogues.
This field has been very fertile for the grant grabbers over the years in both veterinary and human research, and the general consensus is that the jury is still out in both cases. The article describes some of the previous findings, but it conspicuously omits "negative results". So hold on if the next "wonder cologne" promises too much at too high a price.

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