Pentagon Explores 'Human Fear' Chemicals; Scare-Sensors, 'Contagious' Stress in the Works? | Danger Room from Wired.com

Pentagon Explores 'Human Fear' Chemicals; Scare-Sensors, 'Contagious' Stress in the Works? | Danger Room from Wired.com: "


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Pentagon Explores 'Human Fear' Chemicals; Scare-Sensors, 'Contagious' Stress in the Works?
By David Hambling January 18, 2008 | 12:00:00 PMCategories: Bizarro, Chem-Bio, Less-Lethal  
American military researchers are working to uncover and harness the most terrifying chemical imaginable: that most primal odor, the scent of fear.

Pheromones are chemicals released by animals as signals to their own kind: for sex, for territorial marking, and more. They're often detected in the olfactory membranes. But there's more to pheromones than attraction. Many animals have an alarm pheromone which is used to signal danger; aphids, for example, use it to cause their fellow lice to flee.   
Now, the US Army is trying to track down and harness people's smell of fear.  The military has backed a study on the 'Identification and Isolation of Human Alarm Pheromones,' which 'focused on the Preliminary Identifica"

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