Goldcoastq
01-07-2011, 01:21 PM
I just read
this in todays news and thought others would be interested.
Scientists confirm tears are a
turn-off
John von Radowitz, AAP
January 7, 2011, 2:31 pm
Tears do more than show that we are sad
- they transmit subtle airborne chemical messages that have biological effects.
Research has shown that when
women cry it makes them less sexually attractive to men.
The effect is not psychological but the result of
pheromones, or scent messages, transmitted by the tears.
Scientist believe tears shed by men may send out
similar, or different, chemical signals.
Emotional crying is believed to be a uniquely human behaviour,
although some animals also produce tears.
Mice shed tears to stop their eyes drying out, but studies have
shown that male mouse tears act as an aphrodisiac for females.
When male mice cry, it makes them highly
attractive to their mates.
Scientists led by Noam Sobel, from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel,
wanted to find out if human emotional tears carried similar signals.
They set up an experiment in which male
volunteers sniffed either tears from women who watched a sad movie, or drops of salty water trickled down the cheeks
of the same women.
In both cases, the men reported that the tears had no odour, but those who sniffed the
genuine tears tended to find women in photographs less attractive than those exposed to fake tears.
Tests
showed that tear-sniffing men experienced drops in physical arousal and levels of salivary testosterone, the male
sex hormone.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said the finding raised a number of questions,
such as the identity of the active compound in tears.
They said: "The current results conclusively
demonstrate a chemosignal in human tears. In this, we illustrate a novel functional role for crying."
this in todays news and thought others would be interested.
Scientists confirm tears are a
turn-off
John von Radowitz, AAP
January 7, 2011, 2:31 pm
Tears do more than show that we are sad
- they transmit subtle airborne chemical messages that have biological effects.
Research has shown that when
women cry it makes them less sexually attractive to men.
The effect is not psychological but the result of
pheromones, or scent messages, transmitted by the tears.
Scientist believe tears shed by men may send out
similar, or different, chemical signals.
Emotional crying is believed to be a uniquely human behaviour,
although some animals also produce tears.
Mice shed tears to stop their eyes drying out, but studies have
shown that male mouse tears act as an aphrodisiac for females.
When male mice cry, it makes them highly
attractive to their mates.
Scientists led by Noam Sobel, from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel,
wanted to find out if human emotional tears carried similar signals.
They set up an experiment in which male
volunteers sniffed either tears from women who watched a sad movie, or drops of salty water trickled down the cheeks
of the same women.
In both cases, the men reported that the tears had no odour, but those who sniffed the
genuine tears tended to find women in photographs less attractive than those exposed to fake tears.
Tests
showed that tear-sniffing men experienced drops in physical arousal and levels of salivary testosterone, the male
sex hormone.
Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said the finding raised a number of questions,
such as the identity of the active compound in tears.
They said: "The current results conclusively
demonstrate a chemosignal in human tears. In this, we illustrate a novel functional role for crying."