pheromones ? Do they smell or not?

[jellyjelly]

Having a conversation do pheromones smell or are they want you dont smell but you are attracted too?

[MrsBadger]

they don't smell

[Boco]

Yes, they smell strongly of jam tarts.

[jellyjelly]

thanks will look forward to smelling jam in the clubs.

[southeastastra]

i think you can smell them, each person smells of something don't they

[MrsBadger]

yes, but the smell you conciously smell with your nose is smell. Pheremones aren't dealt with by the same receptors in your nose so you don't class them as 'smell'.

[Boco]

Yes but your brain translates them into jam tarts.

[southeastastra]

what are they? as if you were explaining to a 6 year old

mm jam tarts

[elasticbandstand]

not everyone can smell them, suposedly!

[MrsBadger]

Think of pheremones as the smell equivalent of a sound just too high to hear, or UV light which you can't actually see.
So we can detect them and they affect us but not in quite the same way that smells / sounds / light in the 'visible' spectrum do.

[southeastastra]

no i'm still lost

[MrsBadger]

er

they are the non-smelly 'smell' chemicals that make us fancy people?

[southeastastra]

chemistry then

[MrsBadger]

oh yes
[nods sagely]

[southeastastra]

maybe it's a mix of all senses merging into one

[MrsBadger]

[strokes beard]
it's actually an extra sense, you know - the receptors are up your nose and the chemicals are like ones that smell, but you can't actually smell them...

[southeastastra]

oh like an aura then?

[MrsBadger]

well no, because Science can detect pheremones and the receptors we use to 'smell' them, and afaik auras are a closed book to the peer-reviewed literature...

[policywonk]

MrsBadger

Are you Ben Goldacre in disguise?

[MrsBadger]

no, but I may have some of his articles stuck above my monitor at work

oh who am I kidding, he is my hero

[policywonk]

heh heh

Outed!

(I love him too. I get very when he talks about Mrs Bad Science.)