INVESTIGATION SIXTH SENSE Sometimes you just know what's coming next: ur best friend's pregnant, your lover has bad news — it’s a feeling in your bones. Or so you thought. Your sixth sense, it seems, actually lives up your nose Remember the amazing story of mensrual synchrony? ‘That when a group of women live or work together in a close environment for some time. theie menstnil ‘eydes start to coincide? ‘The woman who discovered this, Martha McClintock, {almost as famous in the US as her story is world- ‘wide. And right now the world is watching her more avidly than ever. Why? Because it looks lk ‘year-old is about to pin down that elusiv ‘sth sense, that wind phenomenon we in trouble without any. thing being said, And she's focusing her attention on that rather prosaic orpan, the nose. Director ofthe University of Chicago's new Institute for Mind and Body, McClintock is tall blonde with {eyes as teal blue as her scarf, She cams grants and awards the way athlete Marion Jones wins gold medals. But she's just as elap-your-hands-and-holler happy when ‘one of the dozen students she mentors discovers that, say, the inflammatory cell response in an isolated rodent has behaved according to theory, as when the [National Science Foundation plops a $2million grant in her lap to build a new lab, Her ques? McClintock. nee explains: We are interested in thoughts, wishes, fan- tasies, motivation, tension and all those rich aspects Of the mind and how they interact with biology.” Her lab is essentially a foray into biology-meets- psychology ~ a combination that's never been seen before. I's hard t0 keep a count of the experiments going on at any given time, but among the current batch are projects on pheromonal signals and mood ‘swings in humans, loneliness in rats, and whether or ‘not rats have ‘chi. Before you say ‘chi, my eye’, bear fn mind that MeClintock was able to persuade the University of Chicago to allow an $11m lab just for her. tall began nearly 30 years ago when, as a psy- chology undergraduate (and a classmate of Hillary Clinton's) at Wellesley College, Massachusets, “McClintock had the nerve to stand up before a con. ference of esteemed male biologists and announce that women who spend time together have their periods at the same time. The scientists had come together to discuss pheromones ~ the chemical messages that pass between organisms without their conscious knowledge ~ and how they cause female mice to ovulate at the same time. ‘Despite my self- ‘consciousness, I mentioned that the same thing > Words RACHELLOUSE SNYDER Protogapis OAV PALMER arc ANNMAELLINVESTIGATION Heightening your awareness of pheromones ‘and their role is the most promising route to take if you want to hone those “inuitve’ powers. |Cut back on personal hygiene . eo with your gut feeling ‘when choosing your perfume. We're instinctively drawn to perfumes that enhance our natural smell and that individual smells dlosely linked tothe genetic make-up of our Immune systems. Our natural odour isa way of advertising how genetically robust we are. Researchers observed this phenomenon after asking 137 students from the University of Bern in mee Cree ee ray paren ietectet periods) could be delayed or moved forward by as much as two weeks in response to odoutless chemi cals from another woman, They identified what they believed were two pheromones for the menstrual eycle (and specifically ovulation) contained in the armpits and, once more, published the results in Nature ‘The discovery made headlines around the world and has, according to McClintock, potential applica- tions in treating menstrual disorders and infertility, which may lead (0 2 more natural method of eontra- ception, (However, her paper i ess than two years old which, in scientific terms, means its applications are many years away from reaching mainstream medicine) ‘Smisfied that human pheromones do in fact exis, MeClintock has since set out to discover where in the ‘human body these signals are being picked! up. Wher cexacly isthe receptor for this sixth sense? Science has. Germany to sniff paper volunteers in Bern, there ‘stripe with seents such as. —_was astatlng exception. ‘vanilla, lac and jasmine, Instead of being attracted and then rate how pleasant to the scent of dissimilar ‘they found them. They men, women on the Pill ‘concluded in the journal chose men whose Behavioral Ecology that immunity genes were students who shared closest to their own. The certain genes liked the theory i that the Pll same scents. simulates pregnancy, when ‘Numerous studies ina women is no longer rice have shown that they looking for a mate, buts sniff out mates with genes attracted to smells of her for immunity different from immediate family (le very theirown,to maximise ike her own). their chances of healthy ‘offspring. But among Jong known that many mammals, including dogs, pigs and elephants, have a tube-like structure in the ‘nose called the vomveronasal organ (VNO), responsi- ble for receiving pheromone signals. Female pigs, for example, will ly assume the mating position if their VNO. is exposed to male ig pheromones. ‘Mer examining 221 cadavers, McClintock located the VNO in the human nose. Actually, scientists had sported it in the easly 20th century but, astonishing 1y, they'd Forgorten about it with the advent of high: tech, fibre-optic scopes. McClintock explains: ‘When they stick the probe in [the nasal cavity, the optical tend is always facing in the opposite direction [to the NO}! It took her lteral-thinking mind to swivel the probe the other way to rediscover the tiny cigar-like pits that run parallel co the mouth palate and make ‘up the human VNO. So, thanks to MeClintock, we now know thatthe same satellte dish for receiving ‘sixth sense’ information in ‘animal i present in humans. But McClintock is quick to admit that, ‘We don't know yet ifthe VNO fas any funetion in humans.’ Rat and mouse VNOs are packed ‘with millions of nerve cells, but no evidence has been. found that human VNOs contain any (although they may simply be hidden ~ scientists are currently tying, 10 locate them), So, where does allthis leave the sixth sense? Well, ‘animals definitely have it; we probably do, to0. I's likely to be created by pheromones, and it looks as. though we might well process these in our nose, although some uncertainties remain, That sak, you jet the impression that in McClintock's hands i's just. ‘1 matter of time before the missing pieces of the pheromone puzzle are slotted into place. ‘And! yet, despite her cresentials and her success, MeClintock’s work on the sixth sense has always been. somewhat controversial, Suna Jacob, a researcher in McClintock's lab, believes this is because i hints that ‘we are a the mercy of hidden forces. think people tare threatened by this ~ its a cultural thing,’ says Jacob. “There's a bias you run into as you present the work because people don't want to know that there are things that affect them that they can't contol ‘Typically, this maverick scientist doesn’t have an ‘ordinary lab-coat take on the way these unseen chem {cals work. Finding no adequate word in the English language to describe i, she borrowed "vasana’ from the Sanskrit, meaning “10 perfume’ It refers to the unconscious chemical signals that leave impressions, ‘on the mind,’ she says. ‘Out of Sanskrit philosophy. i's up there with karma. I thelps} explain why pco- ple act the way they do in a particular social situation. Karma? From a scients? You heard it here frst De WN Nab oUICVE COU ‘Science or intuition? Go online at eve's website to share ‘your views on seth sense. Rachel Louse Soyer iesin Chicago and has raced alove the word, and writen storesin ‘more than 40 counts. Arad esayst and ‘cotta to Natoral Pub Rado, she has ‘cei been rernated fortwo profesional rparalsm anards.