On Mon, 25 May 2009 06:06:54 -0700, Stephen Black wrote: >Answer according to a recent but apparently still unpublished study: > >Differences in major histocompatibility complex genes for the immune >system. I can't wait for the song writers to get to work on that. > >http://tinyurl.com/oeyqy2 > >(Apparently a presentation today at the European Society of Human >Genetics by Prof. Maria da Graça Bicalho of the University of Parana, >Brazil).
Question: since the comparison was between married couples and "152 couples chosen at random from the population and who were neither married nor having sexual relations with one another", how do we know that it isn't something about being married that altered the genes of married people? According to some people, marriage changes everything. :-) A prospective experimental study should be done. And if scents or pheromes are the basis for the "attraction", then people should base "desirability as a mate" judgments solely on appropriately presented scent samples that are either genetically similar or different to the participant. I can see it now: Experimenter: here, sniff this cloth. Participant: okay *sniff, sniff* Experimenter: On a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 means "I would never want to meet this person" and "10 means I would like to spend the rest of my life with this person", how would you rate the person this smell came from? Participant: You're kidding me, right? Anybody know someone who needs a thesis topic? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
