* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn, Warnock introduce CREATE Act to provide tax relief to music creators – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn and Warnock Launch CREATE Act to Deliver Tax Relief for Music Creators

    That’s (Political) Entertainment: When Theatre Meets Politics

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Changing Collective Bargaining in the Entertainment Industry – Jackson Lewis

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Transforming Collective Bargaining in Entertainment

    The SBA’s live-entertainment bailout was supposed to end two years ago. We still don’t know how $1.5 billion was spent. – Yahoo Home

    $1.5 Billion Live-Entertainment Bailout: Two Years Later, Where Did the Money Go?

    Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, Boyd – CDC Gaming

    Top Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, and Boyd Take Center Stage

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

    Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

    Emory orthopaedic surgeons use robotic technology to transform knee replacement surgery – Emory News Center

    How Robotic Technology is Revolutionizing Knee Replacement Surgery

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Revenue … – Yahoo.co

    Cognizant Q2 2025 Earnings: Impressive Revenue Growth and Key Takeaways

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    More than just a hockey player – Rochester Institute of Technology Athletics

    Beyond the Ice: The Inspiring Journey of a Remarkable Athlete from Rochester Institute of Technology

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn, Warnock introduce CREATE Act to provide tax relief to music creators – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn and Warnock Launch CREATE Act to Deliver Tax Relief for Music Creators

    That’s (Political) Entertainment: When Theatre Meets Politics

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Changing Collective Bargaining in the Entertainment Industry – Jackson Lewis

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Transforming Collective Bargaining in Entertainment

    The SBA’s live-entertainment bailout was supposed to end two years ago. We still don’t know how $1.5 billion was spent. – Yahoo Home

    $1.5 Billion Live-Entertainment Bailout: Two Years Later, Where Did the Money Go?

    Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, Boyd – CDC Gaming

    Top Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, and Boyd Take Center Stage

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

    Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

    Emory orthopaedic surgeons use robotic technology to transform knee replacement surgery – Emory News Center

    How Robotic Technology is Revolutionizing Knee Replacement Surgery

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Revenue … – Yahoo.co

    Cognizant Q2 2025 Earnings: Impressive Revenue Growth and Key Takeaways

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    More than just a hockey player – Rochester Institute of Technology Athletics

    Beyond the Ice: The Inspiring Journey of a Remarkable Athlete from Rochester Institute of Technology

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

You Can Literally Sniff Out Other People’s Inner Feelings

December 22, 2023
in Science
You Can Literally Sniff Out Other People’s Inner Feelings
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

December 22, 2023

5 min read

Scents are not only important in our relationship to food and the natural world. They also play a role in how we communicate with people we know

By Marta Zaraska

Grandmother embracing adult granddaughter in garden

After a viral infection robbed Chrissi Kelly, an American archeologist living in the U.K., of her sense of smell, she no longer felt like herself. It was as if she were “floating away,” untethered from the rest of the world. Smell, she says, is something that binds us to nature and to our family, and without it, we cannot fully participate in everyday life. She missed the social part of scents: the deep joy of hugging a loved one and taking in their personal aroma. “I found living without the sense of smell profoundly disorienting,” she says.

Kelly felt so strongly about what happened to her that she started a charity called AbScent to help people with smell loss. Kelly’s perception that smell forms part of a person’s identity is now receiving confirmation from recent research findings. A 2023 study from European researchers found, for instance, that not only can we pick up the scent of other people’s fear or anxiety, but such emotions affect how we feel, too. Another study from China showed that people with better olfaction have more friends. “We see all kinds of behavioral effects,” says Shani Agron, a neurobiologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Humans have a long history of disregarding our noses—even Darwin claimed that the sense of smell is of “extremely slight service” to people. According to Bettina Pause, a biological psychologist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany, one reason may be that social olfaction happens outside of our conscious attention. “The only thing I might know about this conversation is that my body feeling changes,” she says. Yet humans seem quite able to pick out someone else’s body odor. One study found that after shaking hands with people of the same gender, people reflexively sniffed their right hand more than twice as often as they did before the greeting.

We pick up quite a lot of information from sniffing the body odor of people around us: we can recognize our kin, tell who is genetically related and pinpoint potential friends (we tend to choose friends who are genetically similar to us and have similar body odor). In one study, most new mothers were able to identify their baby by its smell after spending as little as 10 minutes together, and newborns can recognize their mother, too.

Adult human sniffers, meanwhile, can match pairs of identical twins by their body odor, even if the siblings live apart. In a 2022 study, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science managed to predict which volunteers would bond together simply by comparing their body odor—a task performed both by human smellers and an electronic nose (a device that looks like an old CB radio with a hose). The scientists discovered that people who smelled similar to each other were more likely to enjoy chatting and report that they felt instant chemistry. This goes along with earlier research showing that we subconsciously choose friends who share some of the same genes.

What’s more, if we were to chat with someone feeling happy, chances are we would detect their current emotional state through smells that reach the nose. In one experiment conducted in the Netherlands, volunteers watched cheerful videos while holding absorbent pads in their armpits. Later, when another group sniffed the pads, measurements of their facial muscles’ activity revealed that their mood improved, too: their smile muscles moved more.

Yet it’s not only happy feelings that can be communicated through body odor. A 2020 study by Pause and colleagues showed that women’s brains reacted more strongly when they smelled the sweat of men who had played an aggressively competitive game compared with the odors of men who had just enjoyed a calm construction game. It turns out that women also proved to be particularly sensitive to odors that signaled male anxiety. On picking up such odors, they became more risk-avoidant and less trusting. “Anxiety is a signal of, ‘Please, I need help,’” Pause says. This, she believes, may explain why women appear more attuned to the smell of anxiety—historically, in distressing situations, it was women that cared for the young and the feeble. Such evolutionary links could also explain why women with more discerning noses perform better at tests of empathy, as revealed in a small 2022 study carried out by Pause and her colleagues.

In general, a sensitive nose seems to be an asset that enhances our deeply social life. Those who could better tell apart everyday odors also reported less loneliness, a 2020 study of 221 volunteers concluded. In other experiments, people with a better sense of smell had a larger social network and more friends, and they met with those friends more often. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, meanwhile, revealed that the same brain circuits may be involved in both our sense of smell and the size of our social circle.

For now, however, the mechanisms of how exactly humans pick up body odors and translate them into changes in our behaviors remain largely a mystery. “It’s a multifaceted problem that we have yet to really begin to tease apart,” says Johan Lundström, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Scientists are also just beginning to pinpoint which chemicals in body odor may be responsible for influencing social connections. One such molecule may be hexanal, which gives off a pleasant whiff of freshly cut grass—and appears to boost trust in people. Yet we still don’t know if those who have more hexanal in their body odor are perceived as more trustworthy, says Monique Smeets, a social psychologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

More research will likely follow because, as Agron says, “The pandemic really put a spotlight on the sense of smell.” Even though Omicron appears to be less damaging to our noses than previous COVID variants were, a 2023 study estimated that 11.7 percent of adults of European ancestry who have been infected with Omicron have had some amount of olfactory dysfunction. People with smell loss may end up missing out on important but subconscious ways of communicating with others. And smell should be valued because olfaction is the most honest of our senses—something that, unlike our words or facial expressions, we just can’t fake. “I can laugh even though I’m sad or aggressive, but I cannot intentionally change my chemical messages,” Pause says. “It’s kind of the only information which you can trust.”

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Scientific American – https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-can-literally-sniff-out-other-peoples-inner-feelings/

Tags: literallysciencesniff
Previous Post

The Most Important Unsolved Problem in Computer Science

Next Post

Inside Mathematicians’ Search for the Mysterious ‘Einstein Tile’

Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

August 2, 2025
New NIL guidance from College Sports Commission softens stance on collective payments to athletes – CBS Sports

New NIL guidance from College Sports Commission softens stance on collective payments to athletes – CBS Sports

August 2, 2025
Foraging strategy and tree structure as drivers of arboreality and suspensory behaviour in savannah-dwelling chimpanzees – Frontiers

Foraging strategy and tree structure as drivers of arboreality and suspensory behaviour in savannah-dwelling chimpanzees – Frontiers

August 2, 2025
EPA attacks climate science. Here are the facts. – E&E News by POLITICO

EPA Questions Climate Science: Key Insights You Shouldn’t Miss

August 2, 2025
6 science-backed strategies to improve your memory – National Geographic

6 Proven Science-Backed Strategies to Boost Your Memory

August 2, 2025
Trying to keep your brain young? A big new study finds these lifestyle changes help – NPR

Trying to keep your brain young? A big new study finds these lifestyle changes help – NPR

August 2, 2025
2025 World Junior Summer Showcase: 3 things learned on Day 5 – NHL.com

3 Must-Know Highlights from Day 5 of the 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase

August 2, 2025
Economic Reality Bites Trump and His Protectionist Trade Policies – The New Yorker

How Trump’s Protectionist Trade Policies Ended Up Hurting the Global Economy

August 2, 2025
Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

August 2, 2025
President Trump Delivers Remarks on Making Health Technology Great Again – The White House (.gov)

President Trump Delivers Remarks on Making Health Technology Great Again – The White House (.gov)

August 2, 2025

Categories

Archives

August 2025
MTWTFSS
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Jul    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (750)
  • Economy (775)
  • Entertainment (21,653)
  • General (16,243)
  • Health (9,812)
  • Lifestyle (783)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (776)
  • Politics (784)
  • Science (15,988)
  • Sports (21,271)
  • Technology (15,753)
  • World (758)

Recent News

Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

August 2, 2025
New NIL guidance from College Sports Commission softens stance on collective payments to athletes – CBS Sports

New NIL guidance from College Sports Commission softens stance on collective payments to athletes – CBS Sports

August 2, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version