Recently, a study has shown that we humans often pick our close friends by smell. Even though this seems of and quite hard to believe, it’s true.
Some people might say that this is quite normal, as nobody would want to be near someone who reeks of a trashcan, however attractive they might be. This case is different though because people sometimes pick friends that have a similar smell to themselves.
Scientists tested two “Click” friends for their smell, and surprisingly they were much more similar than that of a stranger. Click friends are pairs of friends that seemed to “Click” the moment they met. These scientists also made pairs of strangers play a game together and used their smells to predict if they would get along well.
Also, scientists who study friendship have noticed that friends not only have similar hobbies, but they also have similar brain activities, genetics, and sometimes even appearance. Soon, Inbal Ravrebry, a researcher from the Weizmann Institute of Science, got curious if people who “clicked” from the start had similar smells.
First, she had twenty pairs of “click friends” come to the lab. Next, she put them through a test. This test consisted of not eating garlic for a few days, not putting on deodorant and using only unscented soap when bathing which was provided by the lab. Lastly, they would sleep in a shirt given by the lab for a few nights so it would have their smell on it.
When all forty of these people finished their “test,” Ms. Raverbry and her colleagues used an electric nose to sniff all these shirts. They also recruited some real people to sniff these shirts to see if there were any similarities between the smells of the “click friend” pairs.
Surprisingly enough, there was a positive connection 71 percent of the time. But the team is not done. Now, they are running a test to see if people artificially made to smell similar feel a connection.
If this study proves to be true, we might be much more like other land mammals than we think.
Some people might say that this is quite normal, as nobody would want to be near someone who reeks of a trashcan, however attractive they might be. This case is different though because people sometimes pick friends that have a similar smell to themselves.
Scientists tested two “Click” friends for their smell, and surprisingly they were much more similar than that of a stranger. Click friends are pairs of friends that seemed to “Click” the moment they met. These scientists also made pairs of strangers play a game together and used their smells to predict if they would get along well.
Also, scientists who study friendship have noticed that friends not only have similar hobbies, but they also have similar brain activities, genetics, and sometimes even appearance. Soon, Inbal Ravrebry, a researcher from the Weizmann Institute of Science, got curious if people who “clicked” from the start had similar smells.
First, she had twenty pairs of “click friends” come to the lab. Next, she put them through a test. This test consisted of not eating garlic for a few days, not putting on deodorant and using only unscented soap when bathing which was provided by the lab. Lastly, they would sleep in a shirt given by the lab for a few nights so it would have their smell on it.
When all forty of these people finished their “test,” Ms. Raverbry and her colleagues used an electric nose to sniff all these shirts. They also recruited some real people to sniff these shirts to see if there were any similarities between the smells of the “click friend” pairs.
Surprisingly enough, there was a positive connection 71 percent of the time. But the team is not done. Now, they are running a test to see if people artificially made to smell similar feel a connection.
If this study proves to be true, we might be much more like other land mammals than we think.
