Prof. Noam Sobel and his team of the Weizmann Institute of Science have now shown that merely sniffing a woman’s tears – even when the crying woman is not present – reduces sexual arousal in men.

This study raises many interesting questions. What is the chemical involved? Do different kinds of emotional situations send different tear-encoded signals? Are women’s tears different from, say, men’s tears? Children’s tears? This study reinforces the idea that human chemical signals – even ones we’re not conscious of – affect the behavior of others.