Man is one of the smelliest of all creatures, though the fact is not widely known.

Man is one of the smelliest of all creatures, though the fact is not widely known. "There is little in the animal kingdom ... to compare with the human armpit for olfactory potency," notes science writer Lyall Watson. Just so. It is an odd paradox, therefore, that we pay less attention to each other's odors than do other members of the animal kingdom. Mice, for example, communicate their sexual availability and intentions by means of odoriferous chemicals called pheromones. Attempts by the perfume industry to market human pheromones have, however, all failed. The receiving apparatus, a specialized region of the nasal cavity called Jacobson's Organ, seems to have atrophied in our species. Or perhaps not. By dint of new, high-resolution brain-scanning techniques, researchers in Sweden recently found that the part of the brain controlling sexual behavior lights up when male subjects are exposed to estrogen-based odors, or female subjects to the smell of male sweat. The researchers further discovered that homosexual men have the female response, not the male one; though whether this is a cause of homosexuality, or an effect, remains to be determined. All very interesting, no doubt; but we'd prefer courtship among humans to continue to be based on something more refined than body odors, thanks all the same.