時尚雙語:女人靠鼻子選男友

Women may be better at sniffing out biologically relevant information from underarm sweat, a US study suggests.

美國一項研究顯示，女性通過腋下氣味識別生物性相關信息的能力很可能更強。

Researchers found it was difficult to mask underarm odour when a woman was doing thesmelling, but quite easy to do so when it was a man.

研究人員發現，用其它氣味來矇蔽女性對腋下氣味的識別是比較困難的。相比之下，男性則更好矇騙。

They speculate that a woman's highly attuned smell radar might help her select a mate.

研究人員由此猜測，女性敏銳的嗅覺可能有助於她們選擇適合自己的伴侶。

The study, by Philadelphia's Monell Center, appears in Flavour and Fragrance Journal.

由費城蒙尼奧研究中心組織的這項研究成果已經在《香料與香味雜誌》上發表。

In the study, women and men rated the strength of underarm odours, both alone and in conjunction with various fragrances.

參與試驗的女性和男性分別用鼻子去聞兩組腋下氣味，一組是獨立的腋下氣味，另一組是腋下氣味與其它多種香味混合而成的氣味。

The fragrances were selected to test their ability to block underarm odour through a method known as olfactory cross-adaptation.

研究人員利用嗅覺交叉適應的方法來測試他們辨別腋下氣味的能力。

This occurs when the nose adapts to one odour, and then also becomes less sensitive to a second odour.

採用這種測試方法是因爲一旦鼻子對第一種氣味適應之後，它對第二種氣味的判斷靈敏度就減弱了。

Sniffed alone, the underarm odours smelled equally strong to men and women.
當男女在聞獨立腋下氣味的時候，男女的辨別能力旗鼓相當。

But when fragrance was introduced, only two of 32 scents successfully blocked underarm odour when women were doing the smelling.

但是當腋下氣味中混合了其它香味的時候，32種氣味中只有兩種腋下混合氣味讓女性無法成功識別。

In contrast, 19 fragrances significantly reduced the strength of underarm odour for men.

與之相比，19種腋下混合氣味成功矇騙了男性的鼻子。

Lead researcher Dr Charles Wysocki, a behavioural neuroscientist, said: "Taken together, our studies indicate that human sweat conveys information that is of particular importance to females.

研究小組的首席研究員、行爲神經科學家查爾斯·維索斯基博士表示，綜合實驗結果，人類汗腺分泌的氣味所傳達的信息對於女性尤爲重要。

Not only were women better smellers than men, but male odours were harder to block than female odours.

不僅女性的嗅覺比男性敏銳，而且男性的體味比女性的更難隔離。

Underarm odours from the two sexes did not differ in how strong they smelled. However 19% of the fragrances successfully reduced the strength of male underarm odour, compared to over 50% for the female equivalent.

男女腋下體味的強度其實並無差異。但是，男性香水能有效地減弱男性腋下19%的氣味，而女性香水則能掩蓋超過50%的體味。

Dr Leslie Knapp, an expert in biological anthropology at the University of Cambridge, said there were good evolutionary reasons why a woman's ability to detect body odours should be more acute, as it could literally be an effective way to sniff out a suitable mate.

劍橋大學生物人類學專家萊斯利·納普博士表示，女性辨別體味的能力之所以更強是因爲進化的原因，因爲這樣女性就可以更有效地聞出適合自己的伴侶。

She said: "Women perhaps need to be more discriminating when they choose who to mate with to produce offspring, as they invest more than males in the reproductive process.

她說：“女性可能在選擇與之生育後代的伴侶時需要更有效地識別能力，所以她們在繁衍過程中具備了優於男性的某種能力。”

"Men don't need to be so choosy, they have lots of sperm, and can reproduce with lots of females, but once a woman reproduces with a partner she is tied up for nine months."

“男性不需要如此得謹慎，他們有許許多多的精子，他們可以和許多女性生育後代。而一旦女性懷孕，她們需要經歷9個月的忍耐。”

Dr Knapp said there was evidence that odour gave a hint about genetic make-up. She highlighted HLA genes involved in the immune response.

納普博士說，有證據表明，體味同時也會發出一個人基因組成的信號。她強調，人類白細胞抗原基因就與免疫功能相關。

She said in evolutionary terms it was desirable for a women to mate with a man whose genes were different from hers, as this was likely to produce more robust offspring.

她表示，從進化的角度來說，女性若能和與自己基因組合不同的男性結合是很好的選擇，因爲那樣他們的下一代很可能更健康。