Mothers and newborns form special bonds from the moment of initial skin contact, if not from all the life kicking about within them in the last few months of pregnancy. Those bonds also form through eye contact and smell. A new study looks at “maternal chemosignals” in the bonding process.
pheromones
Those were the words of Christian Dior, who may have recognized a connection between the volatiles around us and our behavior. As a parent and now grandfather, I must agree with my wife; there is something special about sniffing an infant's head. Is it something they release or that we have applied, like baby shampoo? A new study suggests an evolutionary role for the smell of an infant.
Single men, and men in committed relationships, have different behavioral responses to females at various stages of their fertility. A new study reveals that men may avoid temptation even more so when women are ovulating, when the threat is at its greatest.
People often think that pheromones play a role in who we find attractive or how we choose a mate. Although researchers keep addressing the question, the scientific evidence for the presence of pheromones in humans is lacking. Here, yet another study has failed to uncover any proof of their existence.
Pheromones have long been credited (or blamed) for our behavioral choices, most notably our choice of sexual partners. The idea that we could base such a seemingly personal choice on a unconscious chemical signal is fascinating but, is there any scientific evidence to support it?
The rat population is an ongoing problem due, in large part, to the fact that they're really good at one thing -- making more rats. But through a bit of biological jujitsu, or using the opponent's force against itself, researchers have developed an application that uses sex pheromones that can greatly help in the capture of these nasty rodents.