Friday, October 27, 2006
Ancient human hunters smelt blood on the breeze
From New Scientist: Our ability to detect the characteristic metallic smell left on the skin after handling iron-containing objects like coins and keys may have evolved for a more gory purpose: to help our hunter ancestors track down wounded prey.
Fats on the skin break down to form volatile, strong-smelling substances called ketones and aldehydes when they come into contact with iron - whether it comes from the environment or from haemoglobin in blood - says Dietmar Glindemann, a chemist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. [Continued at "Ancient human hunters smelt blood on the breeze"]
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The above is based on a paper from the Angewandte Chemie International Edition titled "The Two Odors of Iron when Touched or Pickled: (Skin) Carbonyl Compounds and Organophosphines" (Abstract) [Odours]
Requests for pdf reprints of this article can be obtained via Scientific Publications of Dietmar Glindemann
Books on Human Origins from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US
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