Sun, 6 Sep 2009
95% of people can guess someone’s sex just from smelling their breath.
This is from Learn Something Everyday, a new site I discovered from I forgot where.
Anyway, while the site is an interesting and innovative initiative, and the fact in itself is interesting too, my biggest grouse is – how do I verify the authenticity of what’s being said?
I tried searching for the information online but the quote always turns up on its own, without any sources or studies to back it up.
I’m probably not looking hard enough – the last time this happened was when I was working on my research paper and I found this quote about Alfian Sa’at’s One Fierce Hour and how the Straits Times lauded it as “truly a landmark for poetry [in Singapore]“.
Every source I found about the book had the same line, but I couldn’t find the exact article with those words. I remember searching for days on end and wondering if this was one of those things that become truth when you repeat it often enough.
(Who said that line about repeated lies becoming truths, anyway?)
Well, suffice to say, I managed to find the article on RedNano (proved to me that the damn site was good for something), and in case anyone is curious, it was Lee Tzu Pheng who said it in a book review.
So yes – I’m probably not looking hard enough, so if anyone can point me to the actual source where the information about being able to guess someone’s sex from smelling their breath can be found, I’d be very grateful.
Anyway, some tangential information on the Big Lie to sum up what I’ve been thinking about information and credible sources.
I found something that indicates that there is some basis for sex-specific breath smells, but nothing confirming the exact quote. I listed the source under website. The pertinent part is here:
“Applying data analysis and pattern-recognition techniques to the 373 most repeatedly detectable compounds, the researchers reported finding “individually distinct and reproducible GC/MS fingerprints, reproducible differences between the sexes, and … the chemical structures of 44 individual and 12 gender-specific volatile compounds.” Because none of the compounds was found exclusively in certain individuals or in just men or women, it was the “multivariate fingerprint”—the components’ relative proportions—that was most telling. “Odor may be analogous to facial features, in that no single measurement on a face can easily be used to recognize an individual,” the researchers suggested.”