Be On The Nose

Page ini telah dilawat sebanyak:

The most powerful attractant of all is, in fact, invisible. We are drawn to individuals whose immune system varies from our own, as it confers an evolutionary advantage on any offspring.

That's because combining differing parental MHC (major histocompatibility complex, a cluster of immune genes) produces more diverse immunity in babies, endowing them the broadest arsenal for fighting disease.

So how exactly do you check out someone's immune system?. Sniff it out. That's what Claus Wedekind, a Swiss zoologist at the University of Bern, discovered in experiments investigating links between mate selection and body odour. He asked his subjects to smell unwashed T-shirt worn by strangers for 48 hours, and rate the sexiness of their odours.

They overwhelmingly preferred the whiff of shirts worn by people whose MHC varied most from their own.

What's the moral?. Don't be too clean: you may be washing away your sexiness attribute.

Source: Reader Digest