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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute.
We produce tears in response to insults to the eyes—the sting of onion fumes1, a tiny insect that flew into your cornea. But we also produce emotional tears. And it’s long been known that emotional tears are chemically different from poke-in-the-eye tears. Now researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel find that women’s emotional tears have definite physiological2 effects on men. The work appears in the journal Science. The researchers knew that mouse tears contain pheromones that convey information to other mice. So they looked for similar kinds of signals in human tears.
Two women volunteered to watch sad movies and have their tears collected. Twenty-four men were then asked to sniff3 the movie tears or a saline solution. The men noted4 no particular smell in either sample of salty water. But the men’s own body chemistry could tell the difference.
When the men looked at emotionally neutral images of women’s faces after sniffing5 real tears, they reported less sexual attraction. The men also had lower levels of testosterone and less physiological arousal after smelling emotional tears compared with saline. Future studies will look at men’s tears, once researchers have collected enough videos of heartbreaking losses in big football games.
Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Cynthia Graber.
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1
fumes
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n.(强烈而刺激的)气味,气体 | |
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2
physiological
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adj.生理学的,生理学上的 | |
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3
sniff
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vi.嗅…味道;抽鼻涕;对嗤之以鼻,蔑视 | |
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4
noted
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adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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5
sniffing
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n.探查法v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的现在分词 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说 | |
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