“She’s crazy; she thinks he smells like cookies when really, he reeks like piss”

IF THIS REMINDS ME OF YOUR LOVER’S ARMPITS THEN GENE THERAPY MIGHT BE FOR YOU (PHOTO: ANDY STAFINIAK)

If you’ve ever heard that refrain, then you will be glad to know that the pee/vanilla smell paradox has been solved. Hurrah. As usual, it all comes down to your genes.

If you’ve got one mutant version of the odor receptor OR7D4, then the steroid derivative of testosterone known as androstenone will smell sweet like vanilla to you. If you’ve got two of the “normal” odor receptor genes, like 62% of the study population, then you’ll detect the stench of stale urine emanating from his armpits. Or so reported a slew of science news outlets including Scientific American‘s Nikhil Swaminathan.

According to Yoav Gilad, a human genetics prof at the University of Chicago who was involved in the study, this is the first time that genetic differences in olfactory receptor genes are linked to a difference in smell.

That’s all fine and good (yay geneticists!). But what I’d like to know is how on earth this evolved in the first place. I mean how is it that associating manly man smells like androstenone with piss is an evolutionarily winning strategy? How does that increase your survival or reproductive success?? Really.

One idea might be that if a man was more affluent and successful he got to bath a lot so he’d stink less like pee, and attract more women, and so on. But then we really didn’t start regularly bathing until this past century, if even. So that leaves the whole other 129,900 years of our human existence pretty stinky like pee. Oh, and this goes both ways. Women can stink like piss too since androstenone is found in both female and male sweat. What? Why! Why would we go and do that??

Me? I think this whole new mutant odor receptor that makes you smell Betty Crocker instead of rank bar urinals is a great idea. I hope it spreads wide and fast. And I can think of a handful of other noxious odors that would do good to tag onto other mutant odor receptors that tell us we’re sniffing chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves instead of say… carrion, stale sour towel smell, funky dish sponge, or jock strap.