Stupid is as stupid smells?

I smell something fishy here.

Have you ever been in a roomful of republicans ?

It doesn't smell like a roomful of kindergardeners or a roomful of Ministers !

We are past the election. PLEASE drop the politics.

And of course we can smell emotions. Humans didn't last this long without having other senses than the basic five. If you couldn't sense something behind you about to eat you your species won't live long, and we have many abilities that we are told as children not to use. It's unfortunate that we do that in the US (not all cultures quash the natural sensing abilities their kids have) and many other countries, but hopefully it will become mainstream to use them all.

The MythBusters just tested this last week. However, they used both male and female "scared sweat".

They came to the same conclusion, plausible.

Good job NBC News, you're reporting the same thing a science TV show already did!

Yep, that makes sense. You can feel it coming off someone if you let yourself, too. The energy changes...add the smell factor and humans aren't so blind to everything as common "knowledge" says. We can sense things in many ways...your realization that you can smell fear is a good thing and something you can use to stay safe or protect someone else.

Yes, there's so much mental processing going on below the cerebral cortex, we're not consciously aware of. A huge amount of sensory input never even reaches the conscious portions, and that's where almost instantaneous analysis of a situation occurs - which we call "instinct" or "gut feeling" or whatever. Pay attention to those feelings; that ability kept all of your ancestors alive long enough to keep your lineage going. Just because we're "civilized" doesn't mean that ability is irrelevant now. Especially young women - DON'T ignore those little red flags, especially for the sake of politeness. If you're with a guy and something seems - or smells - wrong, GET OUT.

That's sick. Why would you want to terrify or torture any animal?

For the flavor, of course. Though I don't condone the mistreatment of animals, you can certainly tell the differences in the taste.

I seriously doubt it. And if you've tortured animals to find out, you're a sadistic criminal.

howieCA -

There's a reason you want a clean shot when you're hunting, say, deer. A flood of adrenaline (caused by fear) into the muscles causes lactic acid to build up and changes the flavor of meat. It causes a "gamey" flavor. Whether or not it's "better" tasting is up to the beholder.

A-1 Steak Sauce. The humane alternative.

There's a reason you want a clean shot when you're hunting, say, deer. A flood of adrenaline (caused by fear) into the muscles causes lactic acid to build up and changes the flavor of meat. It causes a "gamey" flavor. Whether or not it's "better" tasting is up to the beholder.

True, but most people say that that flavor is NOT as good. But I think the main reason you want a clean shot when hunting is because you don't want to have to track down a wounded animal for miles, or let one get away wounded. Especially if it's a bear! :-)

But then - consider

That same deer, farm-raised, grain and DGH-fed, quietly led to the slaughterhouse - the meat will come out with that same, bland, mass-produced taste.

Whereas, when hunted, that wild flavor, that gamey-ness, is carried over as Lilac points out. And that will be present regardless of if the kill-shot is clean or not.

Yes, we want clean kill shots because we want to eat the animal, not torment it. We don't want to track wounded animals for miles, and we don't want excessive bullet-bits in our meat.

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Howie: No, I've never tortured animals, but have eaten both wild and domestic varieties of a number of critters, and differences in flavors are astonishingly pronounced. Here's a grand example:

Less than 14 miles from my house is a bison ranch. They raise, slaughter and sell their own bison. It's good, lean, tender meat. Didn't take long to make me a believer.

Then four years ago, I was invited to participate in an actual bison hunt. The meat was SO much better, and so much so I conducted my own culinary experiment - cutting wild and domestic bison steaks in half, preparing both halves the same way and plate for plate and bite for bite the wild bison won out over the domestic.

Given that the only real differences here are that one is commercially processed and the other is wild and hunted, I can only conclude the difference in flavor due to the fact that the wild bison was so much more rich and flavorful because the animal was fighting for its life, whereas the domestic bison went out rather unsuspectingly.

Here's an even better experiment: Slaughter a domestic bison that's been farm-raised, and take another domestic bison from the same herd, turn it loose, hunt it down THAT DAY and shoot it. If you still taste a difference in the meat, then you'll know for sure that it was indeed the manner of death, and not the animal's life-long diet that made the difference.

Given that the only real differences here are that one is commercially processed and the other is wild and hunted, I can only conclude the difference in flavor due to the fact that the wild bison was so much more rich and flavorful because the animal was fighting for its life, whereas the domestic bison went out rather unsuspectingly.

Seems pretty obvious to me that it's the "wild" part that is the big difference there. What you feed an animal and how much exercise it gets are the greatest factors in the content (and thus the flavor) of the meat.

Pot smoke works better.

Aerosol Valium might work, too.

But the net effect is the same. If you smell the chemical(s) released when someone is afraid then you are in effect smelling the smell of fear. Subtle difference perhaps, but the result is the same.

My husband and I have discussed this and posit that deoderant is a cultural or social tool to (essentially) keep the status quo, orderliness, etc. in public places.

dude, the election is over, go crawl back in the cave for 4 years....