Research just published in "PLoS One" reports that people can discriminate the age of a person by just sniffing their odor (i.e., the used t-shirt procedure). Surprise! When people are blind to age of the person whose odor they're sniffing, they find YOUNG people's odors to be more intense and unpleasant. Most people would probably claim the old folks smell bad but that's probably because they haven't sniffed any oldsters recently. :-)
For one popular media account of this research, see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9300270/Age-can-be-detected-by-smell-study-finds.html For a somewhat more scientific but made for public consumption account, see: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/05/smells-like-old-spirit.html And for the research article itself, see: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038110?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+plosone%2FPLoSONE+%28PLoS+ONE+Alerts%3A+New+Articles%29 So, given that I believe that most Tipsters are of the older persuasion, I have to say that you all stink but not so bad! ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=18094 or send a blank email to leave-18094-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
