August 26, 2008

The smell of danger

For as long as anyone can remember there have been sayings that go around the fact that humans can smell danger, these may be something like “I can smell danger in the air” and so on. However, this has normally been put down to fear or something similar.

However according to research being conducted by researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland are said to have found that this is in fact true and have published their results in the Journal Science.

Their research although not conclusive has found that all life forms, including animals, insects and plants all give off what has become known as alarm pheromones, which stay in the air and therefore anything in the area can actually detect these, therefore being able to warn about the danger ahead.

Source [NY Times]