Why would we need such a strong sensitivity to it?
Petrichor
Submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/b18f249c-af8b-4956-895d-7fe74b7dab25.png
Comments
Live_your_lives@lemmy.world 6 months ago
superkret@feddit.org 6 months ago
We evolved in the Savannah.
Rain means the watering holes are filling up, which is obviously good cause we need water, but it also attracts prey animals.DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
This, of course, was summarized most eloquently at the zenith of human evoloution: the 1982 hit single by Toto clearly stating, “I bless the rains down in Africa.”
Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 months ago
You think rain is your ally?
You merely adopted the damp. We Brits were born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see dry sand until I was already a man…
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Was that area a desert 250,000 years ago?
Windex007@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m still missing something here. For it to be useful, I’d imagine that it would need to inform decisions, and do so where existing senses would fail.
At least in my environment, if I can smell rain, I could also just as easily use my eyes to see the cumulonimbus clouds and say “rain, due east”.
In the savanna are there scenarios where the only awareness of rain would be smelling it? Can you derive directionality at 5 parts per trillion? Does it matter?
MBM@lemmings.world 6 months ago
You’d think more African animals (especially predators) would have that ability, then
fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 months ago
Water is life.
wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Moisture is the essence of wetness and wetness is the essence of beauty”
EleventhHour@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Victory is life
MunkyNutts@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Maybe an evolutionary trait to locate water?
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 6 months ago
And thirsty herbivores to eat!
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s worth remembering that evolution doesn’t select for the best as much as it selects against the worst.
The reason we have such sensitivity doesn’t have to be particularly game changing as long as it doesn’t make us less likely to reproduce.
You can plainly see our big niche adaptations being used everyday. We think good. We recognize patterns. We use tools. We walk a lot, efficiently and upright. We communicate with high precision. We have a surprisingly efficient digestive system.
We’re not busting out the ability to smell rain super often, which hints that it might be more in the “doesn’t hurt” category instead of being a big advantage.
My guess is that being able to smell disturbed soil is helpful for tracking, either where an animal has run or where something has been buried. Our ancestors were not above digging up a fresh-ish dead animal a canine had buried for later.
But it could just be that rain sense slightly more accurate than looking towards the horizon was as useful then as it is now: vaguely, I guess? It just doesn’t hurt anything.odium@programming.dev 6 months ago
my theory is natural selection of humans/human ancestor species. The ones who didn’t find shelter in time before a rain died/got sick and died later.
Anticorp@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think it’s more than those who couldn’t find water died, within 3 days.
hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Average male dick length is 2.7cm erect.
Based on my study with a sample size of 1
RidderSport@feddit.org 6 months ago
Trying to get people jealous, are we?
Dann it, you succeeded
frank@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
It’s also an off flavor that tasters train for in beer, from water inclusion. It’s not good for beer but I don’t mind the smell at all
Very beet-flavored to me
edwardbear@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Funny you should call it beet-flavor. Geosmin is literally the reason why beets have that flavour :)
frank@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Yup! I know, I was an expert taster at a large brewery :)
It was fun! And a little bit ruined some beer for me.
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
You train to taste beer?
frank@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
Absolutely, if you’re serious about sensory science!
At the large craft brewery I worked in we trained on like… ~40 attributes? Weekly usually, with taste panel and impromptu trainings most every day.
sevan@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
You can study to become a beer judge, even just for fun: dev.bjcp.org/…/beer-judge-training-study-program/
One of the parts of that is to get a kit that helps you recognize “off” flavors: www.bjcp.org/education-training/…/sensory-kits/
JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I lost my smell to COVID in that first year, before the vaccine. Recently and for the first time since, I smelled petrichor and I could have cried.
lnxtx@feddit.nl 6 months ago
I thought it was ozone.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 6 months ago
It is also that.
Petrichor is the smell of rain and is a term like Channelle #5 where it’s a combination of ozone and geosmin and other compounds.
meowMix2525@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Ozone is the smell of an electrical fire
lnxtx@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Or poliester fleece or blanket when you hear little sparks.
Some will remember playing with a CRT TV screen 👀psud@aussie.zone 6 months ago
Also lightning
Album@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Diff smell.
I call this ‘outside’ smell and you can smell it on a clear day.
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 6 months ago
There’s also fat volatiles in our skin that metals and sunlight degrade, so that outside smell could be the smell of you in the sun.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
rtxn@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I love the smell of redistributed ood in the morning.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
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General_Effort@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Hmm. Seems strangely on point that Ichor is the blood of the (greek) gods. (Petro- means stone, as in Petro-Oleum.)
Fee-fi-fo-fod
I smell the blood of a god
Default_Defect@midwest.social 6 months ago
“better then”
Klear@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’d like to see a share write that more correct.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 6 months ago
I fricking love petrichor! Give me that god blood from stone sky daddy!
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Wish we could be sensitive to H2S, would have saved a lot of lives.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Make every fart a million times worse.
Deebster@programming.dev 6 months ago
Not funny, but interesting!
Matriks404@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Smell of rain!? What…?
Contramuffin@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Wording is funky. To clarify:
The rain smell is due to a compound called geosmin. The bacteria that produces it is Streptomyces.
When I taught microbiology lab, I would grow a petri dish of Streptomyces during one particular class and have the students smell it
Shellbeach@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You mean… You can … Bottle up petrichore ??? How come is there no wide range of perfume/candle/lotion and whatnot?
Can I make it at home, if so, how would I go about it with everyday items? Can stretomyces cause health issues?
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
There absolutely are petrichor scented things
Dasus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There’s like an indian family/company that’s been making some hiqh quality petrichor perfume for idk at least 100 years, probably several hundreds, if not a thousand or more idk.
I forget what it’s called you can probably look it up with perfume pertrichor india
dance_ninja@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yup. I have a shaving soap like that called “Summer Storm.”
maggardrazors.com/…/chiseled-face-summer-storm-ar…
drre@feddit.org 6 months ago
I’ve never smelled the stuff but apparently the smell of rain is something people try to bottle.
atlasobscura.com/…/smell-of-rain-kannauj-perfume-…
Edge004@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I have some of this. It smells pretty good
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
Yup youtu.be/bl7K3lRPLYo
Krauerking@lemy.lol 6 months ago
Well the smell of rain is actually petrichor, it just has a combination of geosmin and ozone and other chemicals that make that smell.
Geosmin on its own is just a part of it.