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Sexual Attractiveness: My chemical romance
性感吸引：我的化學(xué)浪漫
Two putative human sex pheromones turn out not to be.
關(guān)于人類的兩種性信息素的假說被證明是不成立的。
For several decades biologists have pondered the question of whether men and women produce pheromones.
近幾十年來，生物學(xué)家一直在思考這樣一個問題：男人和女人會不會產(chǎn)生信息素。
A pheromone is a chemical signal from one animal to another.
信息素是指從一種動物傳遞到另一動物的化學(xué)信號。
Often, though not always, such chemicals indicate sexual availability—and when it comes to human mating signals in particular,
這種化學(xué)物質(zhì)通常表明性的可行性，而當(dāng)涉及到人類發(fā)出交配信號時，
those looking into the matter have a couple of specific molecules in mind.
研究人員會想到某些特定的化學(xué)分子。
Androstadienone (AND) and estratetraenol (EST) are derived, respectively, from male and female hormones and are exuded in sweat.
男性和女性的荷爾蒙分別產(chǎn)生雄甾二烯酮(AND)和雌甾四烯(EST)，這兩種分子通過汗水滲出來。
The idea that they are pheromonal is thus worth investigating.
因此，它們有信息素的性質(zhì)這個想法是值得研究的。
The results of such investigations as have been made so far, though, are contradictory.
然而，迄今為止進(jìn)行的這類調(diào)查的結(jié)果是矛盾的。
Some experiments have found that these molecules make opposite-sex faces, or photographs thereof, appear more attractive to heterosexual volunteers.
一些實驗已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)這些分子使異性面部或其照片對異性戀志愿者顯得更有吸引力。
Others discern no such effect.
其他實驗則沒有觀察到這樣的效果。
Unfortunately, most of these studies were done with groups of volunteers too small for clear conclusions to be drawn, or using less-than-rigorous experimental methods.
不幸的是，大多數(shù)這些研究是用一些志愿者小組進(jìn)行的，這些志愿者小組太小，無法得出明確的結(jié)論，或使用了不夠嚴(yán)格的實驗方法。
(That has not stopped businesses taking up the idea: several brands of “pheromone perfume” based on EST and, especially, AND are available for hopeful Romeos and Juliets)
（這并沒有阻止企業(yè)對這個想法感興趣：抱有希望的羅密歐和朱麗葉們可以買到一些基于EST，特別是AND的“信息素香水”品牌）
To try to clear up the confusion, a group of researchers led by Robin Hare of the University of Western Australia have performed one of the most stringent studies to date.
為了試著解釋這一困惑，由西澳大學(xué)的Robin Hare領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組已經(jīng)進(jìn)行了迄今為止最嚴(yán)格的研究之一。
They report their results this week in Royal Society Open Science.
他們本周在《皇家學(xué)會開放科學(xué)》雜志上報告了他們的結(jié)果。
英文文本來自經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人 譯文來自七呵夫
