A word of advice, should you ever find yourself in George Preti's lab:Don't inhale. From the doorway, his windowless lair at the MonellChemical Senses Center in Philadelphia looks harmless, with its wonkyassemblage of test tubes, beakers, reagents, rubber gloves, andlaminar-flow hoods. Then Preti guides you to a bench under one of thehoods. He unscrews a cap from a bottle of clear liquid and waves thevessel under your nose. When your reaction falls short of nausea, hetries another bottle, the fumes from which will ruin your appetite forhours.
The human armpit is packed with two kinds of sweat glands. Eccrineglands help regulate temperature through fluid evaporation; the averagehuman body possesses up to 3 million of them. Apocrine glands numberapproximately 2,000; most are concentrated in the armpit and genitalregions. Men and women may communicate chemically through secretionsfrom the apocrine glands, which lie beneath hair follicles. Skinbacteria break down the secretions, creating a distinctive bouquet.
