Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sexy smells: Online dating gets weirder.
By Emily Singer
No luck with Match.com or EHarmony? Online daters now have a
new way to screen potential dates. Two companies offer genetic analysis that
purports to find your perfect love match based in part on the smell of his or
her sweat.
The genetic tests for both companies--ScientificMatch, based
in Naples, FL,
and GenePartner, based in Zurich, Switzerland--are
based on the same study, performed more than a decade ago in Switzerland. Women were asked to
rate the odor of men's sweaty T-shirts, and then both sexes were tested for the
genotype of several genes within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a
family of genes that is crucial for immune function. Women were more likely to
prefer the sweaty smells of men whose MHC genes were most different from their
own.
While it sounds bizarre, the finding does have a potential
evolutionary explanation. According to an article from the Economist,
The children of couples with a wide range of MHC genes, and thus of immune responses, will be better protected
from disease. . . . That could be particularly important in a collaborative,
group-living species such as humanity. Moreover, comparing MHCs
could be a proxy for comparing kinship, and thus help to prevent inbreeding.
Does it really work for finding a date? Probably not.
Subconscious feelings about a person's smell likely make only a minor
contribution to each person's attractiveness equation.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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sparkbliss
07/22/2008
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