Greetings my good humans. I’m excited to bring you the first episode of Lefteris asks science for 2022. While I had recorded the episode in December of 2021, I wanted to wait because I learned so much during this discussion. Sharing this episode when more people would listen to it was exciting for me.
I was never a big essential oils person, (big surprise I know), but I always thought that there is a more primal version of human interaction. I thought that scientists knew what substances humans emitted in order to have a more primal interaction with pheromones. And then since it was known, companies were taking advantage of that and made oils, perfumes, deodorants, and other products with human pheromones in order to sell their products. But apparently, I was a victim of marketing. While humans have the ability to chemically interact with their environment we don’t know exactly what human pheromones exist. We are working on it though.
In this episode of Lefteris asks science I met with Dr. Eva Mishor that recently published a paper talking about a substance that was emitted by babies, and it changed the levels of aggression in men and women. I entered that discussion thinking that she’s going to start talking about why this hexadecanal (the substance we’re talking about) is the first human pheromone. But I was once again wrong (a common theme in these discussions) and Dr. Mishor explained why we can’t qualify this substance as a pheromone yet and what are the tests that need to happen in order to make it a pheromone. But the results are still very exciting and the tests are very promising!
I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Let me know what you think on Twitter. @Lefteris_Asks is where you’ll find me.
