fair use and all that jazz...

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Scent tells men when women are fertile

By Roger Highfield EVIDENCE that women have a tell-tale body odour that reveals when they are fertile has been discovered, one of several subtle clues that overturn the conventional wisdom that men cannot detect ovulation.

The find has triggered a hunt for the signalling chemical, a type of pheromone called a copulin, which could prove a boon for perfume manufacturers.

Given that women go through huge hormonal changes during their menstrual cycle, a team at the University of Texas, Austin, decided to see if there were corresponding odours associated with the different phases of the cycle.

Prof Devendra Singh, who reported the work yesterday in the Proceedings of Royal Society with Dr Matthew Bronstad, commented : "We have found that men can reliably detect the fertile phase of the cycle by body odour. Men could use ovulation-linked odours in their mate selection."

Fifty men assessed the smell of T-shirts worn by 17 women around the age of 22 and were told to see if they could tell how attractive the wearer had been by odour alone. "Each shirt was rated in terms of intensity, pleasantness and sexiness of odour, rather than the actual nature of the odour.

Prof Singh said: "Men judge the smell of a T-shirt worn by the woman during fertile phase as more pleasant and sexy than a T-shirt worn by the same woman during her non-fertile phase. These findings suggest that the human female ovulation is not totally concealed."

It had been thought that ovulation was hidden, so that "alpha males" were forced to stay with their mates to ensure they could not have a rival's child. In the light of the new work, it is thought that changes in odour profile may have been used by men in ancient times to boost the chance of conception, and to tell when it was best to guard their mate from the attention of rivals.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Answers

Hmm.At long last we have discovered what triggers our large dog into attacking me & think we are talking about the same thing here.(I should say this Anatolian was rescued from a woman who used to beat him)

The dog even with other female canine bitches equates "fertility" with agression.

Only found out by keeping a very detailed diary so we could identify any common elements in the apparntly unprovoked random attacks.

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

Guess if it's reliable it could be a new form of birth control, so long as you don't have a cold...

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001