Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

Ummmm ... hello ... don't women sweat too?

It's not "their" sweat. Huummph!

Stinky? It's not "his" sweat, it's your nose
By Julie Steenhuysen
Sun Sep 16, 1:09 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - When it comes to a man's body odor, the fragrance -- or stench -- is in the nose of the beholder, according to U.S. researchers who suggest a single gene may determine how people perceive body odor.

The study, published online on Sunday in the journal Nature, helps explain why the same sweaty man can smell like vanilla to some, like urine to others and for about a third of adults, have no smell at all.

"This is the first time that any human odorant receptor is associated with how we experience odors," Hiroaki Matsunami of Duke University in North Carolina said in a telephone interview.

Matsunami and colleagues at Duke and Rockefeller University in New York focused on the chemical androstenone, which is created when the body breaks down the male sex hormone testosterone.

Androstenone is in the sweat of men and women, but it is more highly concentrated in men. How one perceives its smell appears to have a lot to do with variations in one odor receptor gene called OR7D4.

"It is well known that people have different perceptions to androstenone. But people didn't know what was the basis of it," Matsunami said.

To find out, researchers in Matsunami's lab tested sweat chemicals on most of the 400 known odor receptors used by the nose to sniff out smells and chemicals.

They found the OR7D4 gene reacted strongly with the sex steroid androstenone. Next, they tested whether variations in this gene had an impact on how people perceived the smell of androstenone in male sweat.

They took blood samples and sequenced the DNA of 400 people who participated in a "smell perception test" done in Leslie Vosshall's lab at Rockefeller.

What they found is slight genetic variations determine whether androstenone has a pungent smell, a sweet, vanilla-like smell or no smell at all.

( OR A MIXTURE?)

The role of androstenone is not well understood in humans, but in pigs it sends a powerful sex signal that puts sows in the mood for love.

"It facilitates the courtship behavior in females," Matsunami said.

"There is some evidence published showing this chemical can modify the mood or hormone levels in humans," he said. "What we don't know is whether the receptor we found was in any way involved in this process."

He and colleagues will further study this aspect to understand how smelling these chemicals might affect human social and sexual behavior.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070916/hl_nm/genes_odor_dc ...
(ETC)



Speaking of genes, do Asians tend to smell things ( i.e. food, people, perfumes etc. ) differently from most "outsiders"? Survey says.

A lot seems pretty subjective: this smells good, that bad, hmmmm ... gee, never really noticed until you mentioned it.

Some degree genetically determined, partly prejudicial, EGO-conditioned.

Then there's the whole inpenetrable unconscious

SMELL AGAin !!!

[tzechuk]

Women sweat, but except a very few, we do not have hormones that make it smelly.

[browneyedgirl]

My roommate smells like rancid-Cheetos to me. So, maybe the guy down the street might think that she smells like roses?

[igotthisguitar]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[pkang0202]

Hippies smell.

[mack4289]

[anf1984]

I feel like this is nothing new. HLA/MHC stuff has been talked about for years... You know the "sweaty t-shirt experiment"... some women liked certain ones and not others, and it's not the same for everyone- and they linked it to certain genes involved with immunity... I don't quite remember, but this sure seems like the same basic idea...

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Atavistic]

[Corky]

Well, after having worked with a guy who everyone universally agreed smelled pungently terrible, I have to disagree.

Students wouldn't take this guy's classes because of it. He was quite famous for often smelling bad.

He smelled like pizza, and it was bad enough it could make your mouth water, but not from any desire to eat. Seriously, it turned people green it was so bad.

Sometimes when it rains, the lingering smell wafts out of his old office.

I think he thought people liked his natural smell. I would have much preferred a bottle of rotten fish head extract.

EVERYBODY commented on it. But he was pretty much bi-polar and had severe anger management issues, so no one ever told him. But man...what a way to be remembered.

Wear deodorant.