Stench is in Nose of Beholder

Good news for men with a nasty smell wafting under their arms: Scientists can prove why it's not so bad to everyone. A report published in Nature says that male sweat can invoke scents from urine to vanilla, thanks to tiny differences in a single receptor gene. How it reacts to a sex steroid in men spells the difference between a quick hello and a candlelit dinner.

Scientists have long known that perceptions of the steroid androstenone vary, but couldn’t explain why. The knew it worked wonders in pigs - facilitating "the courtship behavior in females" - and Reuters reports that Duke University researchers look forward to doing further studies on human sexual behavior.

(More science stories.)