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Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

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Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#21

Post by XorNot »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #12
dr_dshiv wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For serious? The top of my kids heads smelled intoxicating for the first 6-9 months. There is still a special scent but not quite the same. And I smell it on other babies, too. It’s like smelling breast milk, but emanating from the Fontainelle

It would be funny if you could only smell it if it was your biological child. Although getting serious statistics on the matter is not easy, the estimated numbers can be surprisingly high (e.g: "One in 25 fathers is not biological parent": https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/11/childrensser... ) If suddenly we discovered an easy way to give a hint you should do a DNA test, it could do some serious noise.

Technically 23 and Me monetized this as the fun holiday gift for everyone + the reddit thread you post in the aftermath.

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#23

Post by cmrdporcupine »

rp1 wrote: post #3

I don’t know if this counts as a pheromone, but babies definitely emit _something_. As a recent father, I have had numerous people remark on how wonderful babies smell after smelling my child. I can’t smell anything. People who can smell this particular smell seem very perplexed that I can’t smell it.

My two children smelled very different as babies. They both had smells, yes. They both smelled good. But entirely different smells. So I'm not sure there's a "baby smell", per se, so much as babies are prone to emitting smells. And because we're protective and they're cute we likely interpret those smells as pleasant.

(Damn, now I want to have more babies, but we're almost 10 years past that possibility. And still nowhere close to grandkid babies.)

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#24

Post by pezzana »

> A new study could change that. Researchers have identified an odorless compound emitted by people—and in particular babies—called hexadecanal, or HEX, that appears to foster aggressive behavior in women and blunt it in men.

Hexadecanal is a sixteen-carbon chain aldehyde:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecanal

A few years back a team claimed to have isolated essence of old person, 2-nonenal, a chemically-related nine-carbon unsaturated aldehyde:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-Nonenal

https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)41198-4/full...

The occurrence of pheromones in the animal kingdom, but so far scant evidence in humans, is a puzzle:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-human-pheromo...

Maybe there really are no human pheromones. Or maybe they're just really hard to study because studying human behavior is so hard in general.

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#25

Post by xattt »

rp1 wrote: post #3

I don’t know if this counts as a pheromone, but babies definitely emit _something_. As a recent father, I have had numerous people remark on how wonderful babies smell after smelling my child. I can’t smell anything. People who can smell this particular smell seem very perplexed that I can’t smell it.

Slightly related anecdote: one of my kids was born with a full head of hair. The hair was the softest thing I've ever interacted with in my entire life. We also have black cat with silky fur that usually feels soft. When the baby came home, the cat's fur might as well have been sandpaper. It took weeks for us to feel the cat's fur as his normal self.

The thing here is that babies have this ethereal and indescribable effect on the people around them which postmodernist science is now trying understand.

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#26

Post by BlameKaneda »

rp1 wrote: post #3

I don’t know if this counts as a pheromone, but babies definitely emit _something_. As a recent father, I have had numerous people remark on how wonderful babies smell after smelling my child. I can’t smell anything. People who can smell this particular smell seem very perplexed that I can’t smell it.

When I lived in my parents' home I couldn't smell anything about it. But whenever I go back there it has this distinctly earthy/wooden smell, and I'm sure it's what visitors smell when they visit it for the first time. Could the same thing (or similar) be happening with your kid, to where you're too used to being around them?

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#27

Post by Terry_Roll »

pezzana wrote: post #24

> A new study could change that. Researchers have identified an odorless compound emitted by people—and in particular babies—called hexadecanal, or HEX, that appears to foster aggressive behavior in women and blunt it in men. Hexadecanal is a sixteen-carbon chain aldehyde: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecanal A few years back a team claimed to have isolated essence of old person, 2-nonenal, a chemically-related…

> Maybe there really are no human pheromones.

There are human pheromones, but the church has taught its followers to clean themselves for hundreds of years, just by observing behaviour. Today we have science which can explain behaviour and different chemicals do affect behaviour. Just takes loads of histidine and see how snappy and aggressive you get, or take loads of glycine and see how you laugh your head off in stressful (cortisol high) situations.

I've wondered for some time why vitamin RDA's are set at the levels they are considering the world is a more polluted and stressful place. My conclusion so far is the current vitamin RDA's will not give you rude health and I think there is some behinds the scenes military involvement or troops used as unwitting guinea pigs to help govt's decide what vitamin RDA levels should be. Its very hard to get healthy food today despite all the technology, a lot has changed since the 70's.

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#28

Post by ksaj »

hvgk wrote: post #15
rp1 wrote: post #3

I don’t know if this counts as a pheromone, but babies definitely emit _something_. As a recent father, I have had numerous people remark on how wonderful babies smell after smelling my child. I can’t smell anything. People who can smell this particular smell seem very perplexed that I can’t smell it.

Three kids here. I could never smell it either. To me babies mostly smell of poop and whatever medication of the hour you have slapped all over their bottom. One thing I have noticed is they smell worse as they get older :)

You remind me of my sister. Once her son was a tween, she remarked "omg, has reached puberty. I have to hold my breath to collect the laundry."

Re: Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive

#30

Post by gnicholas »

RyJones wrote: post #29

Used to be a new father; can confirm. Women who would not pay attention to me without a baby would stop me on the street to coo over a babe in arms.

There are many plausible reasons why women would approach a man with a baby that have nothing to do with how babies smell.

For example, some women just like looking at babies. They may be reminded of their own babies, or thinking of babies that they'd like to have someday. Also, women may be more likely to talk to a man who seems non-threatening (men with babies are probably responsible for very little violent crime!).

While it is possible that babies smell a certain way, and even a whiff of that scent makes women more aggressive, I'd be surprised if this were the most relevant pathway for 'why women are more likely to approach a man with a baby than a man without a baby'. The main variable is the presence of the baby, not how the baby smells.

Now if you tell me that women were more likely to approach you when you had recently been holding a baby...then I think we can draw up articles of incorporation and start a new cologne company.

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