- cross-posted to:
- science_memes@mander.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- science_memes@mander.xyz
I have a very powerful sense of smell.
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I was telling an ex about smelling my coworker’s fear all day. He had a crush on me (it was a call center, so not an especially professional environment), and we had to share my cubicle for training, and he was just pouring out anxiety sweat. My ex had no idea what the fuck I was talking about and I’ve never met someone else who can identify the emotions that a person has by their sweat.
Saying someone “can smell fear” is a normal thing that comes up a lot in media, so I assumed it was also normal to notice. Apparently not. I’ll take all of the help my autistic ass can get in iding others’ emotions though
Now I had the opposite thought because I thought it was normal for people and I was the only one who couldn’t lol
Oh hey, I remember Mythbusters did a thing on that years ago, got a professional sniffer in who was almost consistently able to detect samples of fear sweat out of a lineup of sweat samples. So yeah, fear smell is absolutely a thing if you know what to sniff for.
You got me down a rabbit hole, but it’s now been officially supported that people subconsciously react to smells, so I’m really curious if more people can train themselves to smell it.
legit and respect, gotta take all the advantages you can get.
It smells kind of sour in my experience and i believe I’ve been able to smell it in my childhood pet bird as well as my wife
Yeah, it smells like battery acid to me. It’s fucking wild if birds use the same chemical signals as we do
Wow I can’t believe other people smell the battery acid too. Maybe im not hallucinating
I always thought when people talked about “smelling fear” it was just a poetic way of saying it was obvious that someone was afraid. I’ve certainly never been aware of picking up on a person’s emotions via scent or heard someone say that they’ve done that.
They do release formic acid which smells rank. But I’ve only ever smelled it from a large pile of dead ants. Not a few walking around outside or in a house.
Yes, it’s known that humans have individually different sets of smell (and taste) receptors. So it wouldn’t surprise me that some people would be able to smell ant trail/nest pheromones and the like. I’d guess it has less to do with formic acid though, as they do not regularly release that (it’s used mainly for defense). Some people may be really triggered by the smell of certain flowers while most people would barely notice them. I my self recently developed a sensitivity to some certain chemical that appears to be in many cleaning agents, and it’s very disturbing to find that disgusting smell in so many public places, dishwashing detergents, hair shampoos.
This phenomenon comes apparent a lot with foods and spices. My great example is coriander (cilantro): half of the people like the herb but for the rest it has a soapy taste so much that any food that contains coriander leaves is spoilt for them. Coriander seeds however, do not contain that specific compound. I’m one who can’t stand the herb but very much likes the seeds as a spice.
Related and very interesting is also, is individually different bouquets of mating pheromones which are also present in humans (but perception is mostly subliminary). Those are connected to individual genetic sets of the immune system, a place where genetic variability and mixing is of great advantage. We choose our partners by (being able to) smell, more than we are aware of.
Infodump? … Infodump.
Huh didn’t know other people couldn’t smell ants but for me I find i have to get close and sniff them to get a cent I also get the same cent from dead spiders and I wouldn’t call it offensive but it is quite distinct so it gets a huh out of me every time I catch the cent
i only found out they had a smell a couple years ago, and i’m in my 30s. not because i can’t smell them though, but just because i hadn’t noticed it before.
