chemical signals
jhalper | February 21, 2011
Some of the best moments in my job as a Weizmann science writer are the times when a scientist I'm interviewing slips in a finding that shifts my understanding of how the world works. Not long ago, for instance, I was speaking with a researcher about his work on phytoplankton. Now, the fact that phytoplankton release about half of all the free oxygen on the planet should be an eye-opener to anyone, and a reminder of the importance of ocean health. (But that wasn't the surprise.)
Dr. Assaf Vardi researches the chemicals that phytoplankton produce to communicate. Of course, all sorts of…
mdror | January 10, 2011Did Israeli singer-songwriter Arik Einstein know something that scientists didn't when he released the song "When You Cry You're Not So Pretty" back in 1969?
Prof. Noam Sobel and his team of the Weizmann Institute of Science have now shown that merely sniffing a woman's tears - even when the crying woman is not present - reduces sexual arousal in men.
This study raises many interesting questions. What is the chemical involved? Do different kinds of emotional situations send different tear-encoded signals? Are women's tears different from, say, men's tears? Children's tears? This study…