The Smell of Sex

It's long been debated whether chemical pheromones have the same affect among humans as they do animals. There are plenty of furry, four-footed freaks in the wild who can attract a mate with a spritz from their juice glands, but the same isn't really true of people. And I have first-hand confirmation of this fact. Still, it's hard to test the effectiveness of human pheromones, since the brain's response to these scentless chemicals is subconscious. But with the advent of fMRI, we can now measure even brain activity of which the subject is unaware. So Rice University set up an experiment where men were asked to cut out the deodorant for a few days and wear some sweat-catching pads under their armpits. The sweat they produced while in a state of arousal from watching nasty, nasty porn was collected alongside the sweat they produced when they weren't aroused. Then, women were asked to take whiffs of both pads while (mad) scientists measured their brain responses using fMRI. Turns out sexy sweat lights up a whole different region of the brain than non-sexy sweat. In other words, we're probably slaves to our chemical desires whether we know it or not. But still, I want to personally stress to all of you that this should in no way serve as an excuse to spritz your juices on people. At least not without asking first. More details here.