Mid Brain muses:
We recently blogged about how women are better than men at detecting body odors. So it makes sense to follow up with this story from Science Daily that explains how you’ll soon be able to pick potential dates based on their smell.
Scent on site
A company called Basisnote is exploring ways to capture and profile the body odor of potential partners and then upload them to online dating sites. So before you even meet Mr. Right you can tell if he needs to use Right Guard. The trick to this technology is a saliva test that let’s you classify your own body odor and enter it as a code in a database. You can then search for potential partners who have complimentary body scent profiles.
According to a researcher for Basisnote, the technology works based on genes that determine the Major Histocompatibility Complex. These protein receptors are part of our immune system and they also determine the compounds that are transmitted to our skin to create our own unique body odor. The Basisnote researcher says “the stronger the difference in immune system between the potential partner and yourself, the more pleasant you will find their smell.”
The Beauty Brains bottom line
Based on the information in the article, the science didn’t fully make sense to us. For example, there’s no real mechanism to explain how MHC is related to body odor. So we’d need additional background information before we could comment on the validity of this body odor coding technique. But the idea of matching the scent of someone digitally is certainly an intriguing notion!
What do YOU think? Have you ever used an online dating service? Would you want to know what a potential date smells like? Leave a comment for the rest of the Beauty Brains community.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
You guys usually do better research than this!
An study came out a while ago, unfortunately I don’t remember where, that gathered men’s sweat and had women smell it (I think without telling them what it was). The women described some sweat as disgusting, and actually liked some odors so much they requested to smell them again at the conclusion of the smell test. It was determined that the more different the genetic strengths of the two people- I don’t remember how this was measured, I assume MHC- the better the woman thought the man’s sweat smelled.
I wish I could point you toward the specific study, but I do strongly remember reading about it several years ago.
I second what ariel says: many shows based on the science of sex love trotting that study out because it shatters the myth that humans don’t use smell in mate selection, and even led some to speculate that the perception of such body order elements might come from a vestigial vomeronasal organ hidden somewhere in our sinuses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_y8NTaPNQY&feature=PlayList&p=E4C512CE2286665D&index=4&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL