A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of Attraction by Michael J. Ryan

Author:Michael J. Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2017-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

SIX

The Aroma of Adulation

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.

—Helen Keller

WE SEE, WE HEAR, AND WE SMELL. These three senses all channel stimulation from the world around us into our brains, where their information is merged and collated, some getting more attention than others, and where this information is then used to form our percepts about the world and to help us decide how to interact with it. All of these modalities can be important conduits into our sexual brain, and different animals usually depend more heavily on one modality than the others to identify potential mates and to learn something about them—their species, their sex, their health, and their readiness to mate. Some animals, including us, recruit all of these modalities to experience the sexual beauty of our mates. The sensations and the information we glean from each sense are different but often are complementary. Let’s consider an example, unrelated to sex, of how these senses differ and how they can complement one another.

It has been dry for some time, as it often is here in Texas. We are in a drought that started six years ago and is still going strong. Lake Travis, the main source of water for the ever-growing city of Austin, is two-thirds dry; boat docks there have not felt the embrace of lake water for years. But sometimes I venture out onto my deck and I can immediately, even though it is not raining, sense that relief is on the way; the smell of rain fills the air. We have all sensed this heady fragrance but have probably thought little about its origin. The smell of rain is called petrichor, a word derived from the Greek petra (stone) and ichor, which, in Greek mythology, is the ethereal blood of the gods. Petrichor is produced by oils trapped in soil and stone, which become volatile when exposed to the moisture in the air that proceeds the falling rain. I am not the only one who gets excited by the smell of petrichor; during these same droughts cattle become restless when exposed to it.

The smell alerts me to the possibility of rain, but where is this potential rain? My sense of smell is of little help here, but suddenly I see a strike of lightning in the distant southwest. Now, I know that not only will it rain, but I know the direction of the oncoming storm. Two senses, two different types of information about the same phenomenon. But how far away is it? Do I need to quickly get under cover, or can I relax for a while? As noted in chapter 4, judging the distance of an object can be tricky. But five seconds after I see the lightning, I hear the thunder. They both occurred nearly simultaneously at the source of the storm. When lightning discharges, it heats the surrounding air to temperatures that exceed those of the sun; this causes the air to rapidly compress, which produces the initial loud crack of the thunder.

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