Interesting news item

[Goldcoastq]

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."

[Bruce]

Cool! Good article. First I hear

about it. Would you mind if I used that as the basis of an article for our newsletter? I could dig up the original

research and write my own article.

Thanks,
B

[Goldcoastq]

Absolutely go for it :-))

[Lovely100]

Emotional Support from a Man is a Turn-On!