Re: psychoceramics: Pheromone sprays (was: phrenology)

["Andrew C. Bulhak" <acb @ zikzak.net>]

[N.A.F. McNelly]
> At 2:03 AM 10/7/97, Andrew C. Bulhak wrote:
> >Pheromone sprays are a common form of quackery, alongside Laundry CDs
> >and similar scams.
> 
> Quackery it is.  As someone who spent 10 years studying the
> structure of the olfactory system, from nose to brain (yes,
> the US gov't is willing to fund such things), I can tell you
> that phermone's effects on mammals involves a separate pathway
> than regular smells - the vomeronasal organ in the nasal
> cavity and the accessory olfactory bulb in the brain.
> 
> And guess what folks - humans ain't got either one!

I read in New Scientist (or perhaps Scientific American) that 
scientists have found that humans have a vomeronasal organ, a 
tiny pit in the bridge of the nose containing a receptor.  
Apparently a lot of people who have plastic surgery end up 
losing this organ.

If anything, it may be that this organ is vestigial.

-- 
 andrew c.'. bul+hac?k           "A thousand worlds and every world's a door.
 http://www.zikzak.net/~acb/      The lights go out; I think I think of you,
 -<----------------------->-      But in these times it's so hard to be sure."
                                        ( neil gaiman, "luther's villanelle" )