BiologyLife in all varieties. What is it, and how does it evolve?
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"Long before it's in the papers"
November 18, 2006
Monkeys using perfume? Study investigates
Nov. 17, 2006
Special to World Science
Move over Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana and other purveyors of glamor perfumes.
The next rage in fragrance may be Eau de spider monkey.
Scientists have been reporting sightings of wild spider monkeys rubbing themselves with chewed-up leaves that may function as perfumes. Although it’s unproven that they do it specifically to take on an aroma, mounting evidence points that way, the investi*gators say.
Black-handed spider monkey (courtesy rainforestanimals.com)
The scents “may play a role in the context of social communication, possibly for sinal ing of social status or to increase sexual attractiveness,” scientists wrote in the Nov. 14 ad*vance online issue of the research jounal Primates.
In the report, Matthias Laska and colleagues of the University of Munich Medical School in Germany described watching a group of 10 free-ranging black-hand*ed spider monkeys for a total of 250 hours.
The species, formally named Ateles geoffroyi, is one of four species of spider monkeys—small, acrobatic primates that fling themselves among treetops and live between southern Brazil and central Mexico.
__________________ “God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
Gaiman & Prattchet.
Last edited by Michaelangelica; 11-18-2006 at 02:13 AM.
Reason: Take out *
The leaves might also be used as a mosquito repellant. It was hard for the males to do an affect mating dance when they can't help showing aggression due to slapping mosquitos. The she-monkeys may interpret all that hitting as indication of a future abusive realtionship. Just having some fun.
The leaves might also be used as a mosquito repellant. It was hard for the males to do an affect mating dance when they can't help showing aggression due to slapping mosquitos. The she-monkeys may interpret all that hitting as indication of a future abusive realtionship. Just having some fun.
ROFL
"20 episodes of self-anointing, that is, the application of scent-bearing material onto the body," all by two males.
Lol, leave it to the guys...
moo
__________________ "Other friends have flown before...
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
~ From THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe ~
Another possibility is that the leaves smell like food the females like to eat, thereby created an association between food and themselves. It can also be an "Italian Shower syndrome". After a hard day swinging in the trees, the males are too lazy to bath but want to smell good for the ladies. The compromise is deordorant. I am just showing how easy it is to project human traits into unconscious behavior. No offense to Italians.
Actually it may not be much different from a dog wallowing on something dead he's found (and usually brought home of course). Well, perhaps the smell is different, but my point is that both may have found something they really like and just can't seem to get enough of.
But then I've also been practically teary-eyed from passing too close to little old ladies with a similar penchant for perfume...
moo
__________________ "Other friends have flown before...
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
~ From THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe ~
A friend told me about this last week and now I find it in the paper
Luca Turin is a fragrange guru and revolutionary, I gather.
Both books look like interesting reads.
Quote:
In his book The Secret of Scent, biophysicist Luca Turin says smell is mysterious, not because we believe it to be unreliable, but because we don't understand how it works.
He explains that each scent is based on a molecule, and that each molecule smells different. The problem, he says, is that "we don't know how our nose reads them. Hundreds of times each week chemists somewhere on earth make a new molecule.
Every time it is an absolute mystery what each molecule is going to smell like. It is as if each new molecule were an inscribed clay tablet with a word written in an unknown script and a smell to go with it, like banana or rose or musk.
The pile of tablets is now enormous, so big in fact that no one can have smelled more than a fraction of the total, and we still don't understand how the things are written.
The smell is encoded in the molecule using a cipher. Like all good mysteries, it is hidden in plain sight. It has, if anything, deepened as our knowledge of smell has increased.
Like most enticing enigmas it is simply stated: what is this chemical alphabet that our noses read so effortlessly from birth?"
Turin has proposed a controversial theory of smell, which he explains in his book. Turin's journey is also described by journalist Chandler Burr in his book, The Emperor of Scent.
Both books evoke, in their own way, the sensory world of smell, its paradoxes and mysteries.
And both are concerned with the practical difficulties experienced by fragrance designers - commercial artists - working in a world that has come to be dominated by a science that remains imprecise.
__________________ “God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
Gaiman & Prattchet.
Last edited by Michaelangelica; 11-27-2006 at 04:56 PM.
Luca Turin’s engaging new book follows this form, but doesn’t feel at all like something we’ve read before — which is a tribute both to its subject and to its author. “The Secret of Scent” is about one of the great mysteries in science, one that is not just under our noses (like all the best mysteries), but actually inside the nose. That mystery is smell, and specifically the way the brain interprets molecules as smells. No two molecules, however similar their chemical structure, smell identical. Why not? As Turin asks, “What is this chemical alphabet that our noses read so effortlessly from birth?”
Science thinks that it has answered this question, and that the answer has to do with the shape of a molecule: the geometric arrangement of its atoms determines its smell. Turin disagrees.. . .
Turin has an extraordinary gift for writing about smell. Before he became interested in the science of smell, he was that rare thing, a brilliantly readable perfume critic. He is a biologist by training, based in London after a peripatetic career that eventually led him to the business of fragrance chemistry. He first fell in love with perfume while working in France, via an encounter with a Japanese perfume called Nombre Noir: “halfway between a rose and a violet, but without a trace of the sweetness of either, set instead against an austere, almost saintly background of cigar-box cedar notes. At the same time, it wasn’t dry, and seemed to be glistening with a liquid freshness that made its deep colors glow like a stained-glass window.”
Blimey. There is no unpretentious way of writing about smell;
Turin thinks our sense of a molecule’s smell, rather than being based on its shape, comes from its wave vibration. This theory has been around for a number of decades but has suffered from the lack of a plausible mechanism by which it might work. Turin’s suggested mechanism is based on a quantum phenomenon known as “inelastic electron tunneling,” and it is no easier to understand than its name. The nose has (this was discovered in 1991) 347 scent receptors; these, he thinks, function as a spectroscope, each of them responding to a specific frequency of molecule, and translating them into what we perceive as a smell.
__________________ “God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
Gaiman & Prattchet.
Last edited by Michaelangelica; 12-04-2006 at 05:45 PM.
Scientists use smell tests to detect brain disorders
PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
The World Today - Tuesday, 5 December , 2006 12:46:00
Reporter: Annie Guest
ELEANOR HALL: A new study published today reveals that when it comes to degenerative brain disorders, the nose knows.
Australian scientists are promising a new era in the detection of brain disorders like Alzheimer's, with diagnosis through smell tests.
The University of Melbourne team has discovered a link between an inability to identify odours and at least five diseases, as Annie Guest reports.
ANNIE GUEST: People with mental illnesses are often shunned. Sometimes an inability to care for their hygiene needs further isolates them.
But it was that very problem that was the genesis for the research by Associate Professor Warwick Brewer.
__________________ “God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
Gaiman & Prattchet.
Fascinating! I wonder if the sense of taste might be similarly affected?
My Dad suffered from Alzheimer's and reached a point where he would eat quite a lot of jalapeno peppers (pickled slices) by themselves if allowed.
This behavior showed up after we were well aware of the disease though, so I have no idea at what point his perception of taste might have begun to change.
moo
__________________ "Other friends have flown before...
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
~ From THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe ~
Astronomical instruments needed to answer crucial questions, such as the search for Earth-like planets or the way the Universe expands, have come a step closer with the first demonstration at the telescope of a new calibration system for precise spectrographs. The method uses a Nobel Prize-winning technology called a 'laser frequency comb', and is published in this week's issue of Science. Read » | 0 comments
Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers. The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own. Read » | 0 comments
Fragrance and perfume 
