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Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021
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12:33p
Smell You Later: The Weird Science of How Sweat Attracts
"A newborn baby, though helpless and immobile, will scooch preferentially toward their own birth mother’s odour when breast-milk pads from four different women are placed in the four corners of their cradle. Likewise, a mother can identify her own newborn baby by smell just a few hours after birth."
"Siblings and married couples are able to correctly identify the smell of people with whom they cohabitate. Even adult siblings who haven’t seen (or smelled) each other for more than two years can still correctly recognize their brother’s or sister’s unique odour print. .. People with anosmia—the inability to smell—often face relationship challenges: men without a sense of smell have fewer sexual partners while nonsmelling women are insecure in their relationships. Both are more prone to getting depressed."
"There would be several afternoon and evening smell-dating rounds in the city’s most bustling green space, Gorky Park, as part of a larger science-and-technology festival that takes place over a weekend in May. Random people wandering around the park, science nerds attending the festival, and those attracted to the event after seeing it advertised in local media would all participate. .. This being Russia, people who match up at the smell-dating event would be given exclusive entrance bracelets to a nearby VIP lounge tent so that couples could get to know each other over free, all-you-can-drink vodka cocktails."
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12:52p
The Bad Hair, Incorrect Feathering, and Missing Skin Flaps of Dinosaur Art
"Elephants, zebras, and rhinos would all look pretty different if they were interpreted the same way dinosaurs are."
"Most serious paleoart bases itself on the detailed findings of paleontologists, who can work for weeks or even years compiling the most accurate descriptions of ancient life they can, based on fossil remains. But Kosemen says that many dinosaur illustrations should take more cues from animals living today. Our world is full of unique animals that have squat fatty bodies, with all kinds of soft tissue features that are unlikely to have survived in fossils, such as pouches, wattles, or skin flaps. 'There could even be forms that no one has imagined,' says Kosemen. 'For example there could plant-eating dinosaurs that had pangolin or armadillo-like armor that wasn’t preserved in the fossil. There could also be dinosaurs with porcupine-type quills.'"
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