Word: scenting
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...best-known illustration of the invisible influence of scent is the way the menstrual cycles of women who live communally tend to synchronize. In a state of nature, this is a very good idea. It's not in a tribe's or community's interests for one ovulating female to monopolize the reproductive attention of too many males. Better to have all the females become fertile at once and allow the fittest potential mates to compete with one another for them...
...does one female signal the rest? The answer is almost certainly smell. Pheromones-or scent-signaling chemicals-are known to exist among animals, and while scientists have had a hard time unraveling the pheromonal system in humans, they have isolated a few of the compounds. One type, known as driver pheromones, appears to affect the endocrine systems of others. Since the endocrine system plays a critical role in the timing of menstruation, there is at least a strong circumstantial case that the two are linked. "It's thought that there is a driver female who gives off something that changes...
...Scent not only tells males which females are primed to conceive, but it also lets both sexes narrow their choices of potential partners. Among the constellation of genes that control the immune system are those known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which influence tissue rejection. Conceive a child with a person whose MHC is too similar to your own, and the risk increases that the womb will expel the fetus. Find a partner with sufficiently different MHC, and you're likelier to carry a baby to term...
...sign of how quickly and cannily the investment world reacts to the scent of a new opportunity. An added attraction in this case is that the market for such products is so richly diverse. Not so long ago, traders in weather futures were energy producers, insurance firms and tourism ventures - almost exclusively companies that directly had something to gain or lose from a change in the weather. "Now," says Renaud Huck, CME Group's Europe associate director, "we have equity investors, hedge funds, commodity traders and weather traders." For them - and for the financial firms racing to sell products...
...smelled like?Next Thursday, The Brattle Theatre hopes to take advantage of the close ties between smell and memory as they present a unique screening of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” in Smell-O-Vision.Smell-O-Vision is a concept that combines the release of scents with the viewing of a film to create a more complete sensory experience. Brattle Film Foundation Creative Director Ned R. Hinkle and Boston Children’s Museum Community Program Coordinator Megan L. Dickers collaborated to bring the event to the Brattle.Hinkle says he hopes their approach will provide...