ORIGINAL: geofflambert
This isn't funny but men on average have twice as many tastebuds as women but in compensation women smell better. Let me rephrase that, their olfactory sense is superior.
My SO can taste the different colors of M&Ms and I'm often amazed at how she can't smell things that are very clear smells to me. I also have a lot of taste buds. I saw a picture of a "super taster" tongue which is supposed to be an abnormally high level of taste buds. My tongue had even more than the picture.
There is a pheromone that men produce in their sweat that women can smell and it smells mucky to them. Men can't smell it. I was at the Exploratorium in San Francisco once and they had a kind of quiz on various traits some people have. One of them was to smell a bottle. I couldn't smell anything, but some women I was with were shocked because they smelled a strong musky scent. When we answered the question on the computer, it told us about the pheromone. It's also thought that even though men can't consciously smell it, it may make men agitated when it's around and it is one theory behind the British soccer riots. They happened in standing room only areas when people were crammed in cheek to jowl and all those bodies together (mostly men) may have concentrated the pheromone and made the men more agitated.
They also had other questions like whether you can do the Spock finger thing (I can), whether you can roll your tongue (can to that too), as well as a number of other traits.
I was quite annoyed I couldn't smell the pheromone though. It's one of the rare times someone else could smell something and I couldn't.
Bill
