WEBVTT 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:04.318 "Pheromone" is a very powerful word. 00:00:04.318 --> 00:00:08.462 It conjures up sex, abandon, loss of control, 00:00:08.462 --> 00:00:12.154 and you can see, it's very important as a word. 00:00:12.154 --> 00:00:17.437 But it's only 50 years old. It was invented in 1959. 00:00:17.437 --> 00:00:19.986 Now, if you put that word into the web, 00:00:19.986 --> 00:00:21.496 as you may have done, 00:00:21.496 --> 00:00:23.888 you'll come up with millions of hits, 00:00:23.888 --> 00:00:26.533 and almost all of those sites are trying to sell you 00:00:26.533 --> 00:00:28.792 something to make you irresistible 00:00:28.792 --> 00:00:31.865 for 10 dollars or more. 00:00:31.865 --> 00:00:34.088 Now, this is a very attractive idea, 00:00:34.088 --> 00:00:36.530 and the molecules they mention 00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:38.444 sound really science-y. 00:00:38.444 --> 00:00:40.028 They've got lots of syllables. 00:00:40.028 --> 00:00:42.901 It's things like androstenol, androstenone 00:00:42.901 --> 00:00:45.342 or androstadienone. 00:00:45.342 --> 00:00:46.984 It gets better and better, 00:00:46.984 --> 00:00:49.774 and when you combine that with white lab coats, 00:00:49.774 --> 00:00:51.186 you must imagine that there is 00:00:51.186 --> 00:00:53.700 fantastic science behind this. 00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:58.822 But sadly, these are fraudulent claims 00:00:58.822 --> 00:01:02.161 supported by dodgy science. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:02.161 --> 00:01:04.779 The problem is that, although there are many 00:01:04.779 --> 00:01:07.324 good scientists working on what they think 00:01:07.324 --> 00:01:09.194 are human pheromones, 00:01:09.194 --> 00:01:11.799 and they're publishing in respectable journals, 00:01:11.799 --> 00:01:13.380 at the basis of this, 00:01:13.380 --> 00:01:16.716 despite very sophisticated experiments, 00:01:16.716 --> 00:01:19.269 there really is no good science behind it, 00:01:19.269 --> 00:01:22.561 because it's based on a problem, 00:01:22.561 --> 00:01:26.011 which is nobody has systematically gone through 00:01:26.011 --> 00:01:28.112 all the odors that humans produce -- 00:01:28.112 --> 00:01:30.890 and there are thousands of molecules that we give off. 00:01:30.890 --> 00:01:34.000 We're mammals. We produce a lot of smell. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.144 Nobody has gone through systematically 00:01:36.144 --> 00:01:38.911 to work out which molecules really are pheromones. 00:01:38.911 --> 00:01:40.541 They've just plucked a few, 00:01:40.541 --> 00:01:42.430 and all these experiments are based on those, 00:01:42.430 --> 00:01:45.440 but there's no good evidence at all. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:47.618 Now, that's not to say 00:01:47.618 --> 00:01:49.780 that smell is not important to people. 00:01:49.780 --> 00:01:53.282 It is, and some people are real enthusiasts, 00:01:53.282 --> 00:01:56.779 and one of these was Napoleon. 00:01:56.779 --> 00:01:58.571 And famously, you may remember 00:01:58.571 --> 00:02:01.668 that out on the campaign trail for war, 00:02:01.668 --> 00:02:04.475 he wrote to his lover, Empress Josephine, 00:02:04.475 --> 00:02:07.709 saying, "Don't wash. I'm coming home." 00:02:07.709 --> 00:02:08.311 (Laughter) 00:02:08.311 --> 00:02:11.232 So he didn't want to lose any of her richness 00:02:11.232 --> 00:02:13.581 in the days before he'd get home, 00:02:13.581 --> 00:02:15.958 and it is still, you'll find websites 00:02:15.958 --> 00:02:19.860 that offer this as a major quirk. 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:21.024 At the same time, though, 00:02:21.024 --> 00:02:23.477 we spend about as much money 00:02:23.477 --> 00:02:25.248 taking the smells off us 00:02:25.248 --> 00:02:27.969 as putting them back on in perfumes, 00:02:27.969 --> 00:02:32.160 and perfumes are a multi-billion-dollar business. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:34.563 So what I want to do in the rest of this talk 00:02:34.563 --> 00:02:39.841 is tell you about what pheromones really are, 00:02:39.841 --> 00:02:42.839 tell you why I think we would expect 00:02:42.839 --> 00:02:45.587 humans to have pheromones, 00:02:45.587 --> 00:02:50.080 tell you about some of the confusions in pheromones, 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:52.872 and then finally, I want to end with 00:02:52.872 --> 00:02:54.842 a promising avenue which shows us 00:02:54.842 --> 00:02:58.990 the way we ought to be going. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:58.990 --> 00:03:03.171 So the ancient Greeks knew 00:03:03.171 --> 00:03:07.225 that dogs sent invisible signals between each other. 00:03:07.225 --> 00:03:09.599 A female dog in heat 00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:11.515 sent an invisible signal to male dogs 00:03:11.515 --> 00:03:12.970 for miles around, 00:03:12.970 --> 00:03:15.075 and it wasn't a sound, it was a smell. 00:03:15.075 --> 00:03:17.256 You could take the smell from the female dog, 00:03:17.256 --> 00:03:19.719 and the dogs would chase the cloth. 00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:21.327 But the problem for everybody 00:03:21.327 --> 00:03:23.440 who could see this effect 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:25.062 was that you couldn't identify the molecules. 00:03:25.062 --> 00:03:27.515 You couldn't demonstrate it was chemical. 00:03:27.515 --> 00:03:28.830 The reason for that, of course, 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:30.245 is that each of these animals 00:03:30.245 --> 00:03:31.851 produces tiny quantities, 00:03:31.851 --> 00:03:33.510 and in the case of the dog, 00:03:33.510 --> 00:03:36.412 males dogs can smell it, but we can't smell it. 00:03:36.412 --> 00:03:40.770 And it was only in 1959 that a German team, 00:03:40.770 --> 00:03:44.122 after spending 20 years in search of these molecules, 00:03:44.122 --> 00:03:47.903 discovered, identified, the first pheromone, 00:03:47.903 --> 00:03:51.181 and this was the sex pheromone of a silk moth. 00:03:51.181 --> 00:03:54.855 Now, this was an inspired choice by Adolf Butenandt and his team, 00:03:54.855 --> 00:03:56.981 because he needed half a million moths 00:03:56.981 --> 00:04:00.008 to get enough material to do the chemical analysis. 00:04:00.008 --> 00:04:02.097 But he created the model 00:04:02.097 --> 00:04:04.461 for how you should go about pheromone analysis. 00:04:04.461 --> 00:04:07.142 He basically went through systematically, 00:04:07.142 --> 00:04:10.087 showing that only the molecule in question 00:04:10.087 --> 00:04:11.953 was the one that stimulated the males, 00:04:11.953 --> 00:04:14.006 not all the others. 00:04:14.006 --> 00:04:16.164 He analyzed it very carefully. 00:04:16.164 --> 00:04:17.981 He synthesized the molecule, 00:04:17.981 --> 00:04:21.289 and then tried the synthesized molecule on the males 00:04:21.289 --> 00:04:24.150 and got them to respond and showed it was, 00:04:24.150 --> 00:04:25.910 indeed, that molecule. 00:04:25.910 --> 00:04:28.060 That's closing the circle. 00:04:28.060 --> 00:04:30.765 That's the thing which has never been done with humans: 00:04:30.765 --> 00:04:34.375 nothing systematic, no real demonstration. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:34.375 --> 00:04:36.109 With that new concept, 00:04:36.109 --> 00:04:37.818 we needed a new word, 00:04:37.818 --> 00:04:40.653 and that was the word "pheromone," 00:04:40.653 --> 00:04:44.254 and it's basically transferred excitement, 00:04:44.254 --> 00:04:46.523 transferred between individuals, 00:04:46.523 --> 00:04:49.349 and since 1959, pheromones have been found 00:04:49.349 --> 00:04:51.224 right the way across the animal kingdom, 00:04:51.224 --> 00:04:53.426 in male animals, in female animals. 00:04:53.426 --> 00:04:54.971 It works just as well underwater 00:04:54.971 --> 00:04:56.993 for goldfish and lobsters. 00:04:56.993 --> 00:04:58.740 And almost every mammal you can think of 00:04:58.740 --> 00:05:00.563 has had a pheromone identified, 00:05:00.563 --> 00:05:04.393 and of course, an enormous number of insects. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:04.393 --> 00:05:06.362 So we know that pheromones exist 00:05:06.362 --> 00:05:09.423 right the way across the animal kingdom. 00:05:09.423 --> 00:05:11.196 What about humans? 00:05:11.196 --> 00:05:12.444 Well, the first thing, of course, 00:05:12.444 --> 00:05:14.101 is that we're mammals, 00:05:14.101 --> 00:05:15.660 and mammals are smelly. 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:17.536 As any dog owner can tell you, 00:05:17.536 --> 00:05:19.517 we smell, they smell. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:19.517 --> 00:05:21.498 But the real reason we might think 00:05:21.498 --> 00:05:23.323 that humans have pheromones 00:05:23.323 --> 00:05:26.541 is the change that occurs as we grow up. 00:05:26.541 --> 00:05:28.992 The smell of a room of teenagers 00:05:28.992 --> 00:05:30.481 is quite different 00:05:30.481 --> 00:05:33.301 from the smell of a room of small children. 00:05:33.301 --> 00:05:36.173 What's changed? And of course, it's puberty. 00:05:36.173 --> 00:05:37.632 Along with the pubic hair 00:05:37.632 --> 00:05:39.325 and the hair in the armpits, 00:05:39.325 --> 00:05:43.067 new glands start to secrete in those places, 00:05:43.067 --> 00:05:45.682 and that's what's making the change in smell. 00:05:45.682 --> 00:05:47.830 If we were any other kind of mammal, 00:05:47.830 --> 00:05:49.019 or any other kind of animal, 00:05:49.019 --> 00:05:50.156 we would say, 00:05:50.156 --> 00:05:52.028 "That must be something to do with pheromones," 00:05:52.028 --> 00:05:54.684 and we'd start looking properly. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:54.684 --> 00:05:56.660 But there are some problems, and this is why, 00:05:56.660 --> 00:05:59.729 I think, people have not looked for 00:05:59.729 --> 00:06:02.646 pheromones so effectively in humans. 00:06:02.646 --> 00:06:04.217 There are, indeed, problems. 00:06:04.217 --> 00:06:06.401 And the first of these 00:06:06.401 --> 00:06:07.918 is perhaps surprising. 00:06:07.918 --> 00:06:09.752 It's all about culture. 00:06:09.752 --> 00:06:11.899 Now moths don't learn a lot 00:06:11.899 --> 00:06:15.516 about what is good to smell, but humans do, 00:06:15.516 --> 00:06:17.362 and up to the age of about four, 00:06:17.362 --> 00:06:20.081 any smell, no matter how rancid, 00:06:20.081 --> 00:06:21.880 is simply interesting. 00:06:21.880 --> 00:06:23.932 And I understand that the major role of parents 00:06:23.932 --> 00:06:27.613 is to stop kids putting their fingers in poo, 00:06:27.613 --> 00:06:30.411 because it's always something nice to smell. 00:06:30.411 --> 00:06:33.102 But gradually we learn what's not good, 00:06:33.102 --> 00:06:34.592 and one of the things we learn 00:06:34.592 --> 00:06:36.727 at the same time as what is not good 00:06:36.727 --> 00:06:38.485 is what is good. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:38.485 --> 00:06:40.747 Now, the cheese behind me 00:06:40.747 --> 00:06:44.698 is a British, if not an English, delicacy. 00:06:44.698 --> 00:06:48.135 It's ripe blue Stilton. 00:06:48.135 --> 00:06:52.497 Liking it is incomprehensible to people from other countries. 00:06:52.497 --> 00:06:55.782 Every culture has its own special food 00:06:55.782 --> 00:06:57.878 and national delicacy. 00:06:57.878 --> 00:06:59.930 If you were to come from Iceland, 00:06:59.930 --> 00:07:01.254 your national dish 00:07:01.254 --> 00:07:04.230 is deep rotted shark. 00:07:04.230 --> 00:07:06.360 Now, all of these things are acquired tastes, 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:09.520 but they form almost a badge of identity. 00:07:09.520 --> 00:07:14.340 You're part of the in-group. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:14.340 --> 00:07:17.922 The second thing is the sense of smell. 00:07:17.922 --> 00:07:21.391 Each of us has a unique odor world, 00:07:21.391 --> 00:07:23.930 in the sense that what we smell, 00:07:23.930 --> 00:07:26.789 we each smell a completely different world. 00:07:26.789 --> 00:07:28.498 Now, smell was the hardest 00:07:28.498 --> 00:07:30.359 of the senses to crack, 00:07:30.359 --> 00:07:32.074 and the Nobel Prize awarded to 00:07:32.074 --> 00:07:33.707 Richard Axel and Linda Buck 00:07:33.707 --> 00:07:36.140 was only awarded in 2004 00:07:36.140 --> 00:07:38.930 for their discovery of how smell works. 00:07:38.930 --> 00:07:40.307 It's really hard, 00:07:40.307 --> 00:07:42.898 but in essence, nerves from the brain 00:07:42.898 --> 00:07:45.111 go up into the nose 00:07:45.111 --> 00:07:47.492 and on these nerves exposed in the nose 00:07:47.492 --> 00:07:50.546 to the outside air are receptors, 00:07:50.546 --> 00:07:53.695 and odor molecules coming in on a sniff 00:07:53.695 --> 00:07:55.845 interact with these receptors, 00:07:55.845 --> 00:08:00.104 and if they bond, they send the nerve a signal 00:08:00.104 --> 00:08:02.412 which goes back into the brain. 00:08:02.412 --> 00:08:04.474 We don't just have one kind of receptor. 00:08:04.474 --> 00:08:06.350 If you're a human, you have about 400 00:08:06.350 --> 00:08:08.415 different kinds of receptors, 00:08:08.415 --> 00:08:11.382 and the brain knows what you're smelling 00:08:11.382 --> 00:08:13.193 because of the combination of receptors 00:08:13.193 --> 00:08:15.706 and nerve cells that they trigger, 00:08:15.706 --> 00:08:17.264 sending messages up to the brain 00:08:17.264 --> 00:08:20.170 in a combinatorial fashion. 00:08:20.170 --> 00:08:21.160 But it's a bit more complicated, 00:08:21.160 --> 00:08:23.295 because each of those 400 00:08:23.295 --> 00:08:25.446 comes in various variants, 00:08:25.446 --> 00:08:27.517 and depending which variant you have, 00:08:27.517 --> 00:08:31.699 you might smell coriander, or cilantro, that herb, 00:08:31.699 --> 00:08:34.317 either as something delicious and savory 00:08:34.317 --> 00:08:36.491 or something like soap. 00:08:36.491 --> 00:08:39.177 So we each have an individual world of smell, 00:08:39.177 --> 00:08:40.818 and that complicates anything 00:08:40.818 --> 00:08:43.114 when we're studying smell. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:43.114 --> 00:08:45.806 Well, we really ought to talk about armpits, 00:08:45.806 --> 00:08:49.202 and I have to say that I do have particularly good ones. 00:08:49.202 --> 00:08:51.204 Now, I'm not going to share them with you, 00:08:51.204 --> 00:08:53.183 but this is the place that most people 00:08:53.183 --> 00:08:54.920 have looked for pheromones. 00:08:54.920 --> 00:08:56.423 There is one good reason, 00:08:56.423 --> 00:08:59.827 which is, the great apes have armpits 00:08:59.827 --> 00:09:02.155 as their unique characteristic. 00:09:02.155 --> 00:09:04.556 The other primates have scent glands 00:09:04.556 --> 00:09:06.386 in other parts of the body. 00:09:06.386 --> 00:09:08.740 The great apes have these armpits 00:09:08.740 --> 00:09:10.957 full of secretory glands 00:09:10.957 --> 00:09:13.298 producing smells all the time, 00:09:13.298 --> 00:09:16.998 enormous numbers of molecules. 00:09:16.998 --> 00:09:18.701 When they're secreted from the glands, 00:09:18.701 --> 00:09:20.705 the molecules are odorless. 00:09:20.705 --> 00:09:22.780 They have no smell at all, 00:09:22.780 --> 00:09:24.749 and it's only the wonderful bacteria 00:09:24.749 --> 00:09:26.962 growing on the rainforest of hair 00:09:26.962 --> 00:09:28.418 that actually produces the smells 00:09:28.418 --> 00:09:30.439 that we know and love. 00:09:30.439 --> 00:09:32.339 And so incidentally, if you want to reduce 00:09:32.339 --> 00:09:33.769 the amount of smell, 00:09:33.769 --> 00:09:35.689 clear-cutting your armpits 00:09:35.689 --> 00:09:37.945 is a very effective way of reducing 00:09:37.945 --> 00:09:39.459 the habitat for bacteria, 00:09:39.459 --> 00:09:41.796 and you'll find they remain less smelly 00:09:41.796 --> 00:09:43.890 for much longer. 00:09:43.890 --> 00:09:46.436 But although we've focused on armpits, 00:09:46.436 --> 00:09:47.803 I think it's partly because they're the least 00:09:47.803 --> 00:09:51.770 embarrassing place to go and ask people for samples. 00:09:51.770 --> 00:09:54.382 There is actually another reason why we might not 00:09:54.382 --> 00:09:57.158 be looking for a universal sex pheromone there, 00:09:57.158 --> 00:10:00.997 and that's because 20 percent of the world's population 00:10:00.997 --> 00:10:04.442 doesn't have smelly armpits like me. 00:10:04.442 --> 00:10:08.358 And these are people from China, Japan, 00:10:08.358 --> 00:10:10.953 Korea, and other parts of northeast Asia. 00:10:10.953 --> 00:10:14.477 They simply don't secrete those odorless precursors 00:10:14.477 --> 00:10:18.730 that the bacteria love to use to produce the smells 00:10:18.730 --> 00:10:21.079 that in an ethnocentric way we always thought of 00:10:21.079 --> 00:10:23.184 as characteristic of armpits. 00:10:23.184 --> 00:10:27.691 So it doesn't apply to 20 percent of the world. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:27.691 --> 00:10:30.693 So what should we be doing 00:10:30.693 --> 00:10:33.746 in our search for human pheromones? 00:10:33.746 --> 00:10:36.198 I'm fairly convinced that we do have them. 00:10:36.198 --> 00:10:38.151 We're mammals, like everybody else 00:10:38.151 --> 00:10:42.130 who's a mammal, and we probably do have them. 00:10:42.130 --> 00:10:43.713 But what I think we should do 00:10:43.713 --> 00:10:45.652 is go right back to the beginning, 00:10:45.652 --> 00:10:47.991 and basically look all over the body. 00:10:47.991 --> 00:10:49.682 No matter how embarrassing, 00:10:49.682 --> 00:10:53.060 we need to search and go for the first time 00:10:53.060 --> 00:10:55.520 where no one else has dared tread. 00:10:55.520 --> 00:10:56.668 It's going to be difficult, 00:10:56.668 --> 00:10:59.243 it's going to be embarrassing, but we need to look. 00:10:59.243 --> 00:11:02.190 We also need to go back to the ideas 00:11:02.190 --> 00:11:05.457 that Butenandt used when he was studying the silk moth. 00:11:05.457 --> 00:11:08.925 We need to go back and look systematically 00:11:08.925 --> 00:11:11.063 at all the molecules that are being produced, 00:11:11.063 --> 00:11:13.496 and work out which ones are really involved. 00:11:13.496 --> 00:11:15.602 It isn't good enough simply to pluck a couple 00:11:15.602 --> 00:11:17.546 and say, "They'll do." 00:11:17.546 --> 00:11:18.945 We have to actually demonstrate 00:11:18.945 --> 00:11:21.755 that they really have the effects we claim. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:21.755 --> 00:11:24.989 There is one team that I'm actually very impressed by. 00:11:24.989 --> 00:11:28.165 They're in France, and their previous success 00:11:28.165 --> 00:11:32.542 was identifying the rabbit mammary pheromone. 00:11:32.542 --> 00:11:35.111 They've turned their attention now 00:11:35.111 --> 00:11:38.296 to human babies and mothers. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:38.296 --> 00:11:41.367 So this is a baby having a drink of milk 00:11:41.367 --> 00:11:44.010 from its mother's breast. 00:11:44.010 --> 00:11:46.193 Her nipple is completely hidden 00:11:46.193 --> 00:11:47.439 by the baby's head, 00:11:47.439 --> 00:11:51.190 but what you'll notice is a white droplet 00:11:51.190 --> 00:11:52.971 with an arrow pointing to it, 00:11:52.971 --> 00:11:56.170 and that's the secretion from the areolar glands. 00:11:56.170 --> 00:11:59.160 Now, we all have them, men and women, 00:11:59.160 --> 00:12:01.978 and these are the little bumps around the nipple, 00:12:01.978 --> 00:12:03.937 and if you're a lactating woman, 00:12:03.937 --> 00:12:06.274 these start to secrete. 00:12:06.274 --> 00:12:08.863 It's a very interesting secretion. 00:12:08.863 --> 00:12:11.866 What Benoist Schaal and his team developed 00:12:11.866 --> 00:12:14.273 was a simple test to investigate 00:12:14.273 --> 00:12:17.079 what the effect of this secretion might be, 00:12:17.079 --> 00:12:20.055 in effect, a simple bioassay. 00:12:20.055 --> 00:12:22.730 So this is a sleeping baby, 00:12:22.730 --> 00:12:27.719 and under its nose, we've put a clean glass rod. 00:12:27.719 --> 00:12:29.830 The baby remains sleeping, 00:12:29.830 --> 00:12:32.171 showing no interest at all. 00:12:32.171 --> 00:12:34.245 But if we go to any mother 00:12:34.245 --> 00:12:36.674 who is secreting from the areolar glands, 00:12:36.674 --> 00:12:38.251 so it's not about recognition, 00:12:38.251 --> 00:12:40.479 it can be from any mother, 00:12:40.479 --> 00:12:41.831 if we take the secretion 00:12:41.831 --> 00:12:44.735 and now put it under the baby's nose, 00:12:44.735 --> 00:12:46.826 we get a very different reaction. 00:12:46.826 --> 00:12:49.810 It's a connoisseur's reaction of delight, 00:12:49.810 --> 00:12:51.870 and it opens its mouth 00:12:51.870 --> 00:12:53.523 and sticks out its tongue 00:12:53.523 --> 00:12:55.610 and starts to suck. 00:12:55.610 --> 00:12:57.950 Now, since this is from any mother, 00:12:57.950 --> 00:12:59.742 it could really be a pheromone. 00:12:59.742 --> 00:13:01.521 It's not about individual recognition. 00:13:01.521 --> 00:13:03.397 Any mother will do. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:03.397 --> 00:13:04.860 Now, why is this important, 00:13:04.860 --> 00:13:07.318 apart from being simply very interesting? 00:13:07.318 --> 00:13:09.125 It's because women vary 00:13:09.125 --> 00:13:11.898 in the number of areolar glands that they have, 00:13:11.898 --> 00:13:14.094 and there is a correlation between the ease 00:13:14.094 --> 00:13:16.636 with which babies start to suckle 00:13:16.636 --> 00:13:18.498 and the number of areolar glands she has. 00:13:18.498 --> 00:13:21.296 It appears that the more secretions she's got, 00:13:21.296 --> 00:13:24.958 the more likely the baby is to suckle quickly. 00:13:24.958 --> 00:13:26.418 If you're a mammal, 00:13:26.418 --> 00:13:28.961 the most dangerous time in life 00:13:28.961 --> 00:13:31.270 is the first few hours after birth. 00:13:31.270 --> 00:13:35.030 You have to get that first drink of milk, 00:13:35.030 --> 00:13:38.521 and if you don't get it, you won't survive. 00:13:38.521 --> 00:13:39.985 You'll be dead. 00:13:39.985 --> 00:13:42.623 Since many babies actually find it difficult 00:13:42.623 --> 00:13:44.272 to take that first meal, 00:13:44.272 --> 00:13:46.249 because they're not getting the right stimulus, 00:13:46.249 --> 00:13:49.459 if we could identify what that molecule was, 00:13:49.459 --> 00:13:51.446 and the French team are being very cautious, 00:13:51.446 --> 00:13:53.561 but if we could identify the molecule, 00:13:53.561 --> 00:13:56.355 synthesize it, it would then mean 00:13:56.355 --> 00:13:58.261 premature babies would be more likely to suckle, 00:13:58.261 --> 00:14:01.189 and every baby would have a better chance 00:14:01.189 --> 00:14:02.510 of survival. 00:14:02.510 --> 00:14:05.050 So what I want to argue is this is one example 00:14:05.050 --> 00:14:08.646 of where a systematic, really scientific approach 00:14:08.646 --> 00:14:11.368 can actually bring you a real understanding 00:14:11.368 --> 00:14:12.476 of pheromones. 00:14:12.476 --> 00:14:15.090 There could be all sorts of medical interventions. 00:14:15.090 --> 00:14:16.344 There could be all sorts of things 00:14:16.344 --> 00:14:18.044 that humans are doing with pheromones 00:14:18.044 --> 00:14:20.092 that we simply don't know at the moment. 00:14:20.092 --> 00:14:21.978 What we need to remember is pheromones 00:14:21.978 --> 00:14:23.356 are not just about sex. 00:14:23.356 --> 00:14:25.072 They're about all sorts of things to do 00:14:25.072 --> 00:14:26.795 with a mammal's life. 00:14:26.795 --> 00:14:29.484 So do go forward and do search for more. 00:14:29.484 --> 00:14:30.524 There's lots to find. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:30.524 --> 00:14:32.390 Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:32.390 --> 00:14:36.878 (Applause)