62 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATEDThe smell of women's tears makes men lose their sexual appetite,
according to scientists who made men inhale women’s tears.In 2011, brain researcher Noam
Sobel and his colleagues discovered
that women's tears have a special
effect on men. The scientists made
male test subjects inhale both
women’s tears and a scentless salt
water solution. As this happened,
the scientists watched the activity in
the men’s brains. In the brain
scans, the scientists couldclearly see that the scent of tears
reduced the activity of two brain
regions linked with sexual arousal.
The scientists also discovered two
other consequences of men smelling
women's tears: their saliva contained
less testosterone, and they
considered a number of photos of
different women’s faces less attractive
than before the experiment.Tears reduce sex drive
THE BRAIN REACTS TO
THE SCENT OF TEARS
The hypotalamus lights up in brain
scans, when men are sexually aroused,
as the blood flow to the area
increases. The scent of women's tears
reduces the afflux of blood.The fusiform gyrus helps us recognize
bodies and faces, and the area is
activated, when we get sexually
aroused. The activity of this area is
also reduced, when men inhale tears.but they still have not fully established the make-up of
emotional tears. Another question which remains to be
answered is whether tears of happiness include other
substances than the ones people
cry, when they are grieving. With the
tear bank, Noam Sobel intends to
offer scientists throughout the
world a chance to dissect tears
caused by all types of emotions –
the samples can be ordered by labs
anywhere over the Internet and be
delivered shortly after.FREEZE-DRIED TEARS
According to previous studies, tears
are a neglected field of research. In
2011, Sobel and his colleagues
documented that the scent of
women’s tears reduces men’s sexual drive. The results
caused much international attention, but the team had
difficulties developing theories any further, because the
researchers ran out of tears.Tears are difficult to study for several reasons. First of
all, they are hard to get, as most donors cannot cry at
command and so cannot deliver on a steady basis. Moreover,
male donors are few, because men
averagely cry less than women. A
Dutch study from 2009 showed
that the average woman cries 30-
64 times a year, whereas men only
cry 6-17 times annually. However,
the major hurdle is that tears are
very fragile. The molecules of tears
start to break down each other
very quickly, once the fluid has left
the tear glands.
As a result, Noam Sobel has
spent the past several years
developing new methods which
allow safe, long-term storage of
litres of tears in the biological bank.
Sobel cools tears very much and very fast, after they have
left the eye. The brain researcher uses liquid nitrogen to
freeze-dry tears to a temperature of minus 80 °C immediately80
degrees below zero is
required to store tears,
so they will not degrade.SHUTTERSTOCK
The smell of
women's tears
is a sexual
turnoff for men.HUMANS THE HUMAN BODY