Pentagon Explores 'Human Fear' Chemicals

[The Straight Story]

Pentagon Explores 'Human Fear' Chemicals; Scare-Sensors, 'Contagious' Stress in the Works?
By David Hambling EmailJanuary 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 Identification of Steroids of Interest in Human Fear Sweat." The so-called "skydiving protocol" was the researchers' method of choice.

In a lecture given at a 2007 Congress on Stress, the researchers hint at what their study found:

Our findings indicate that there may be a hidden biological component to human social dynamics, in which emotional stress is, quite literally, “contagious."

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/pentagon-resear.html

[peace13]

1. Thank god my nose doesn't 'smell too good'!

Good luck with that!

[aquart]

2. I want those banned now.

Because it isn't the "enemy" they plan to use it on. It's anyone who annoys them.

[NightWatcher]

3. wasnt this from Batman Begins?

[MikeNearMcChord]

4. You just read my mind.

Let me guess General Ra's al Ghul will be tapped to run that program and he will use Dr Jonathan Crane as his officer in charge.

[mmonk]

5. They should be wary of it backfiring. Without fear, there is no courage.

[soothsayer]

6. making a stinkbomb? They'll all be attacked by wolves

and other animals that smell fear!