Genes be crazy
(midwest.social)
LadyButterfly she/her
Science MemesThere is a type of ant that smells like rotten coconut when squished. Is that what they're talking about?
Are we talking formic acid from crushed ants or just there is an ant around and they can smell it?
I smell it either way but it's stronger when they're crushed.
That's the most useless censoring of the word "Fuck" I have ever seen 😅
It looked like it was originally meant to censore word much smalller
What is this, censoring for ants!?
I can't smell it but I can feel it. I just get really itchy.
I'll bet you CAN taste ants though
I never knew about this. Is this the same gene which makes people like/dislike bitter foods?
Years ago at a place I worked at, food manufacturers, the R&D team did a taste workshop. 5 cups of flavours, salt, bitter, water, umami, sweet. The bitter one just tasted of water to me. They called it "bitter blind"
There’s a couple different chemical compounds that can activate your bitter receptors (caffeine for instance) but there are a few bitter chemicals like Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) or N-Propylthiouracil (PROP) that have been linked to variations in a specific gene (TAS2R38). Where I used to work we used PROP strips you’d just put on your tongue to categorize participants into tasters, non-tasters, and potential super-tasters. If it tasted like nothing, you didn’t have the genetic variant. If it tasted like bitterness, it could either be not that bad or, for example in my experience, it’s really really terrible and takes some effort to remove from the tongue.
Probably makes you easier to poison. I will keep that in mind.
I can smell ants and it's a pretty weird smell, but I don't get any of the bitter food problems that some people have with certain vegetables.
With the exception of mushrooms. For some reason mushrooms spark that same sensitivity to ant scents, it's a similar sickly scent and makes me think of decay and loamy undergrowth and is very unappetizing so I've never enjoyed mushrooms.
decay and loamy undergrowth
That's about the closest descriptor I can think of as well. Ants are more metallic to my scent than mushies but that’s it.
I tried truffles once and that came closer to tasting the way ants smell than regular mushrooms. As you said, more metallic, sharper and more "alien." People seem to like truffle a lot, I guess I will save money in my life by not having that indulgence.
I haven’t tried truffles.
Funnily enough I like mushrooms. The smell of ants never used to bother me that much either; finding out it’s selective is intriguing.
Whatever, keep your ant-smelling superpower, I'm not jealous. At least cilantro doesn't taste like soap to me! :P
We need a study on if that’s the divide. If you can smell ants you also think cilantro tastes like soap
Can smell ants, love cilantro, can't smell stinkbugs.
Stinkbugs only smell bad if you scare them. They never smell bad to me, either, but I also try not to scare insects.
Idk if scooping them up and putting them outside is scary to them, but I'm told people can smell them just from being in the same room with them, or crushing them, and I've done (or been near) all of the above yet never smelled one. And they're constantly sneaking in my house so I should have by now I think.
Maybe it’s you who has bo and just can’t smell it. Everyone else has been hinting.
Do stink bugs smell like BO?
Though when I do, I do smell it, and I shower regularly, and it only comes up when talking about stinkbugs, so I'm doubting your hypothesis regardless.
Cilantro: tastes like soap
Can smell ants: no
Sorry, I'm a counterpoint. I got the worst of both.
But do ants taste like soap or cilantro
They taste kind of almost vinegarey
I'm with you. Can't smell ants, but cilantro is soapy.
There are lots of little genetic quirks out there. I experience Arnold's Reflex, that is, I cough when I stick a cotton swab in my left ear canal. (Only my left. My right doesn't react.) There's also the Photic Sneeze Reflex, which is where you sneeze when looking at light. I don't have that, but around 35% of the population does.
I'm sure there are countless more little things like this that people just haven't talked about/gathered enough data on yet.
Every single time I walk outside, 3 sneezes sometimes more because of the sun. Although I've never met somebody else who does the same
I learned about the Photic Sneeze Reflex when discussing the frustration of cancelled sneezes (you know, when you feel one coming on, but then it just doesn't happen and it leaves you feeling weird.) He told me, "When that happens, I just look at a light." I had no idea what he meant. Meanwhile, he thought it was normal for everyone. We both learned something that day.
I didn't know about the cough reflex. I'll have to check if it's both sides. Can you taste iodine? It's present in hot pink food dye, making things like pink peeps taste worse than yellow or blue for me
I can’t smell ants, and cilantro tastes soapy. However, I do have dry earwax and my armpits don’t smell. (Which is just spurious information to your hypothesis.)
but can you roll your tongue? <insert more asenine genetic things here>
I cannot!
I can smell ants strongly and have an aversion to them, and cilantro tastes wonderful to me.
this is your thread! Go nuts!
Exactly! Cilantro tastes like soap to me, but my kids love it. That is so weird. Ant smell and probably snake smell are the same I bet. I have heard old people say they can smell a snake around.
I am afraid that cilantro does taste like soap to me but that people around me have been telling me long enough that it's tasty that I started to like it.
Tldr: I now like the taste of soap.
i’ve had a similar experience, at first it was incredibly soapy to me. now i genuinely like it and i don’t taste the soap anymore. how could that work though if it’s a genetic trait? could this be stronger in some variants of cilantro? or even on the culantro/cilantro divide?
I'm slightly in this. I love cilantro, but when I heard it tastes like soap to some I just thought "I guess a little bit it does taste that way... but the rest of it tastes better."
I think I can hear ants. People probably think I’m crazy. Like if you bend down and get your face really close to their trail. It’s like a buzzing sound. Like static on an old TV. Creepy as fuck.
Could it just be the reflections of ambient noise you also get when you hold your ear close to any surface? The old "If you hold a seashell to your ear, you can hear the ocean" kind of thing.
Ants definitely produce sound when they walk. And why wouldn't they?
TIL I'm a mutant. X-men watch out!
Called evolution. Yes, it's still ongoing in humans. Btw, this is one of the reasons that smaller populations have less survival chances (the other being inbreeding).
I'm tired of microblog screenshots that self-censor 😕
Also that's cool. I'm pretty sure I cannot smell ants. But it's also possible there are ants everywhere I go, so I can't discern what part of the background smells are the ants.
I was watching "deep dives" on Youtube yesterday and was getting confused by all the censoring. Even the word "sex" was censored, and like... what? Not just SA (which I understand censoring), but sex itself? In a video ostensibly designed for an adult (or at least teenage) audience?
It's hard to follow a story when words get censored that you don't expect to get censored. In my mind I think something much worse is being said, and have to pause and rewind to ensure I understood correctly. The best part is, the creator wasn't even from the US, land of the Puritans. I expect Europeans not to be afraid of sex, but I guess this is what Youtube is doing to the world?
That degree of censorship usually implies the content is dual posted to TikTok in my experience
That’s weird, because the videos I watch are 1-2 hours long (or longer.) Informational deep dives are practically the opposite of Tik Tok.
I mean it's my general experience, not a hard rule. Just because the TikTok algorithm actively promotes content with high interaction without any requirement for accuracy doesn't mean there's no educational information on the platform.
Alternatives:
- condensed clips are crossposted to tiktok
- self censorship to the strictest level to minimize risk of demonetization
- self censorship to avoid a mature rating, so viewers don't have to log in to watch
- self censorship to the strictest degree based on all popular platforms' requirements because that is "the internet"
People have always doe weird censorship things as both users and admin. Forums used to **** everything. Then things were free. The big companies started facing public pressure for beings the hosts of content and locked down again.
FUCK
FUCK
FUCK
People complaining about the censorship is significantly more annoying than the actual tiny little blur on one single letter in one single word.
Still not as annoying as the people who complain about the complaints.
I had no idea it was a genetic thing that not everyone has. It's pretty awesome that after fifty years slogging through life, I still run across cool new shit like this
Your part of the ten thousand...
https://xkcd.com/1053/
Wow that's really weird because i thought ants were supposed to be everywhere - at least in summertime when you go outside. If they smell that bad then it must be unbearable just walking around places in the city.
I can only smell them if I sniff a crushed one up close. It’s been a long time - I don’t step on bugs on purpose.
I don't think they're talking about the dead/distressed ant smell. To the best of my knowledge, everyone can smell that. They're talking about a general smell of ants
I'm pretty sure that's the smell they're talking about, they make more of it when disturbed or crushed but it's always a tiny bit there. But pretty sure that's the smell they're speaking of.
The reason I doubt that is because I can't smell ants "all the time". And I can definitely smell them when they're disturbed. But most people who talk about smelling ants describe the smell as "damp" or "mouldy" or "earthy", and I have never smelled an ant that smells like that.
The only smell I've ever smelled from them is acrid and acidic, and that only happens when they're disturbed or dead.
It could be the same smell, maybe just a different concentration of formic acid.
And no, I can't smell anything from dead or distressed ants. I've never smelled anything from an ant, either dead or alive. It's definitely not an "everyone can smell that" thing.
Edit: I just read this comment which says it's not formic acid. Though they don't cite any sources (yet), so I don't really know.
Wait, everyone can smell dead ants? Pretty sure I can't
They smell like paint thinner
they smell funky, a bit like a salty battery doused with acid, if it makes sense?
I can't smell them, but I can hear them
Is it the formic acid?
Depends. With North American formica ants, it's formic acid, but with Canadian odorous house ants, it's a methyl ketone that smells a lot like blue cheese.
smells a lot like blue cheese
Oh, so stinky feet smell?
Kinda? I'd almost describe it as halfway between stinky feet and the smell that stink bugs give off.
Has to be, it's got that same "bite" that other acids have, only a little more earthy
I cant smell ants but I can "smell" formic acid. Even diluted formic acid is so much more pungent and terrible then vinegar, so I doubt its that...
I went and read up on it, was going to edit in , but I'll just do it here.
Apparently it isn't the formic acid, it's other chemicals, and not all ants produce them. I have smelled what they're talking about, or at least three descriptions of one kind of ant smelling like funky cheese is something I have run into.
So you're totally right, and my assumption was wrong.
But damn, formic acid, even dilute, really is pungent. Nose wrinkling, sneeze inducing for me.
Care to share what you read? I'm curious, too.
Is this like how some people can smell if a dude jorked it that day?
I don't think that's real, like the "clogged showers" urban legend that won't die.
The threads I've seen have a lot of replies of people who say they can smell it. One replied to me here. I suppose I tend to believe them because it would be a pointless thing to lie about and also the say it smells like sex so it seems plausible.
it would be a pointless thing to lie about
It was started as a prank against boys who masturbate but don't know much about the world, like the idea that girls can tell you've done it. It's childish and a lot of people keep it going.
I firmly believe the people though that the people who think they can tell are just smelling BO or the person has terrible hygiene and is not cleaning up after doing the deed. (Body/sweat/clothes smells are going to be much, much stronger than any remaining residue from sexual activity, alone or with others.) It's very easy to get a confirmation bias here because I guarantee if you smell someone deliberately you're going to notice smells you don't normally, and if you ask them if they've masturbated that day, most guys if they were honest will say yes because for most guy's that's a daily activity anyway. I would need to see an actual controlled study to think there's any reality to the claim.
Damn I'm naive. Well, guess I helped perpetuate it. Yeah I can't find many studies on people randomly having really sensitive olfactory senses either. Unless you count individual people who can smell stuff like Parkinson's
I know I should quit vaping, but I'm also so glad my nose isn't sensitive enough to smell that from random guys walking by anymore. It was constant tmi
jorked. ok
no wonder why people avoid me.
I can smell earthworms when it rains. It's gross.
How do you discerne between the smell of rain and that of earthworms ?
The rain doesn't talk to you
Speak for yourself.
I can smell worms, period, but I don't think it's gross.
I'm pretty sure I've smelled a dead fly before, but not like Lee Mack.
It smells so weird and strong. I'm surprised not everyone can smell this. I wonder how common this is?
Now I need to know what I'm missing out on... I know the smell of formic acid, and can smell it if andts are really pissed off - but do they just smell?
I usually only smell it after they are agitated. I assume that's what they meant? But usually when I'm smelling ants they are agitated.
Can you smell other insects or is it just ants? Any type of ant?
Most insects don't have a strong odor. It's all types of ants as far as I've noticed.
With ants I typically notice it on my hands after I've touched them. So it's strong enough to linger in that way.
I don't think I've touched an ant since I was a kid.
Well, how do you know it isn't just the smell of the enviroment? I always smell a distinctive smell around ants in the forest, but I don't know if that's actually just the smell of their hill (is it actually called a hill) or of ants.
If you smell a distinct smell around ants, maybe it's the ants that you're smelling.
My anecdotal experience.
I was in SERE school, in the US Navy.
We were in the field portion of the training, the low mountains of SoCal.
I would periodically get this weird, almost bitter smell. Fast forward a day and I realized the smell was when there was an ant on me.
I don't know if it was a combo of the environment, the type of ant, the lack of food or showering for a few days, but it was pretty reliable.
After SERE was over, I have never experienced it again.
some ants when attacked do produce a small (probably by spraying chemicals that is supposed to paralyses/repel other small insects). that I can smell but I can't smell an ant peacefully walking around.
I'm not surprised to learn this, given that there are certain tastes that are generic. The "cilantro tastes like soap" mutation, and the "bitter vegetables are good actually" mutation come to mind.
Which vegetables are supposed to be bitter?
Cucumber is very bitter. Smells and tastes like some sort of chemicals. Same for watermelon, it just doesn't smell as bad
Bitter melon. I have two friends that love it, I cant stand it
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts are the two ones which come to mind.
Never heard of them being called bitter
Only bug I can smell are millipedes.
My friend really doesn't like when I shapeshift into an ant because of the smell
Are you sure it happens when you shape shift?
Yeah, She really hates the smell of ants. If I turn into an ant She'd rather leave the room until I turn into something else.
