My, your eggs smell lovely today!

It's been a while since I posted something regarding scientific studies. I came upon this one today, and felt it HAD to be blogged about....

So apparently some researchers have discovered that sperm can smell. They actually have "features that are similar to the human nose". I had always wondered how in the world sperm knew where to go, but the thought that they can smell had never crossed my mind. They actually have olfactory receptor proteins (like those in your nose, for the lay-person...) with little "sniffers" as they call them, on the outside that can smell "ovarian scents". My eggs have their own perfume?!?!? We should bottle the stuff! Sell it to all the single ladies out there. I'd call it "Heat"..... My favorite part of the article was the opening line - "Like a man who whips his head around to follow a whiff of perfume, sperm cells turn their heads when they detect even the faintest of sexy female scents". They suggested that they can smell these ovarian scents even when they are diluted 100,000 times! That's a pretty good sniffer I'd say. So basically these sperm are mindin' their own business, when they suddenly detect - GASP - "Is that FEMALE I smell!??!" and off they go, headed toward this lovely odor, an unsuspecting, completely oblivious egg. Little does she know she's the cause of such a stampede. Researchers also discovered that sperm virility declines as men get older, and they suggest that just as our sense of smell diminishes as we get older, that sperm's sensitivity to smell declines as well. The scientists haven't discovered exactly WHAT chemicals are producing these scents, but you can best believe they are trying (I'm sure all the men are REALLY interested...). What do you want to bet that some idiot out there starts marketing pills to change the scent? Plumeria, Freesia, White Tea and Ginger....Though I DO wonder if this could turn into some kind of new birth control. Just change the scent of the egg, and the sperm won't know where to go. I also wonder if these findings could help with certain types of male infertility. Maybe some men's sperm sniffers are broken! Similarly, if a woman's egg wasn't producing these chemicals, they could bottle the scent, inject it somehow in the woman's egg, and then the sperm could find it. OH THE POSSIBILITIES!!!!