Body odour: Effects of diet and fertility. 17 Jan 2017

In this episode we poke our noses into two new research papers on body odour and attractiveness. Can women tell if another woman is fertile simply by sniffing her armpits? And can we sweeten our natural aroma by eating fragrant food?

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Something (or Someone) Smells Fishy: Diet and Body Odor

Does a diet rich in fruit and vegetables make a man's sweat smell like a bouquet of flowers? Derek Hatfield/Flickr

The articles covered in the show:

Gildersleeve, K., Fales, M. R., & Haselton, M. G. (in press). Women's evaluations of other women's natural body odor depend on targets' fertility status. Evolution and Human Behavior. View summary

Zuniga, A., Stevenson, R. J., Mahmut, M. K., & Stephen, I. D. (in press). Diet quality and the attractiveness of male body odor. Evolution and Human Behavior. View summary

Diet and desire: How the food we eat influences odour and attraction. 17 Nov 2015

Diet and desire: Why you and your partner shouldn't turn your nose up at garlic, and how men get greedy when there's a woman in the room. Also, since it's #AntiBullyingWeek, we also find out why bullying may be a mating tactic.

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Another Slice of Pizza, Darling?

Eating Garlic Combats Body Odor!

Do Bullies Want Love, Not War?

Men eat more pizza when in the company of women. Louise Ma / WNYC

The articles covered in the show:

Fialová, J., Roberts, S. C., & Havlíček, J. (in press). Consumption of garlic positively affects hedonic perception of axillary body odour. Appetite. Read summary

Kniffin, K. M., Sigirci, O., & Wansink, B. (in press). Eating heavily: Men eat more in the company of women. Evolutionary Psychological Science. Read summary

Volk, A. A., Dane, A. V., Marini, Z. A., & Vaillancourt, T. (in press). Adolescent bullying, dating, and mating: Testing an evolutionary hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychology. Read summary

Is a GSOH attractive? Dec 2012

This month, why a good sense of humour is sometimes attractive and sometimes not so much, how fruit consumption affects appearance, and why high heels elevate attractiveness.

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Stephen Merchant's stand up act is based on his apparent inability to win over women. But new research by Mary Cowan suggests that people's ideas about what constitutes a GSOH are more flexible than we previously thought. So keep plugging away, Smerch!

The articles covered in the show:

Cowan, M. L., & Little, A. C. (2013). The effects of relationship context and modality on ratings of funniness. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(4), 496-500. Read summary

Morris, P. H., White, J., Morrison, E. R., & Fisher, K. (in press). High heels as supernormal stimuli: How wearing high heels affects judgements of female attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary

Whitehead, R. D., Ozakinci, G., & Perrett, D. I. (2012). Attractive skin coloration: Harnessing sexual selection to improve diet and health. Evolutionary Psychology, 10(5), 842-854. Read summary