Scents about Jane
Leukocytes and lilies loved til she a laurel in time was (L)
I’ll tell thee a story, sweet, Here, under this shady tree, If thou’lt keep it safe in thy faithful breast, I’ll whisper the whole to thee. I had a lover, once, In my early, sunny hours, A fair and fanciful youth was she, And she told her love in flowers. Excerpt from Flowers, by Mrs. Sigourney in The lady's book of flowers and poetry.
Leukocytes and
For decades, scientists have debated whether our bodies too flirt with potential partners by telling secrets about our genes through pheromones, and interpreting them through our olfactory system. Female rats have been found to release immunological peptides belonging to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a large chromosomal region of polymorphic immunological genes; male rats smell these MHC peptides and interpret them via the vomeronasal organ (VNO), triggering mating and courtship behavior — Genes, hormones, noses are the three main levels to understand.
In humans, HLA (human leukocyte antigen) complex acts as “our MHC”. The proteins it codes for sit on the surface of most of our cells, they’re routinely used to match patients and donors for bone marrow or cord blood transplants. Though the samples are small, experiments in which men and women are asked to smell and rate how attractive the sweat of a person of the opposite sex is, have shown that people prefer the smell of those of HLAs different to theirs…
To my dismay, a long and winding road of questions still lies between us and a universal theory of human sexual attraction, a clear explanation of how exactly HLA influences the hormones we secrete. Until the puzzle pieces of sweat and genetics come together, we at least know that androgens are involved in immunomodulation via lymphocyte expression of sex steroid receptors.
Then studies about homosexual attraction are even rarer, but it’s been found that homosexual men process the hormone AND in a similar way to heterosexual women, activating the anterior hypothalamus, unlike homosexual women who process AND through regular smell pathways. When smelling the EST hormone though, the latter group experience brain activity that partially resembles that of heterosexual men.
Lastly, the VNO is said to contain sensory neurons that have receptors for sex pheromones and connect to the accessory olfactory bulb, which targets the amygdala and the stria terminalis, which in turn projects to the anterior hypothalamus. Some studies crazily report that an electrolytic lesion of the preoptic area (close to the VNO) shift the mean preference of male ferrets away from the estrous females to the stud males… 🫣
Lilies
Enough anthropocentrism! Flowers are the OG antennas who synthesize rather pleasant scent profiles that attract their pollinators to their nectar-rich blooms. These compounds can come in a specific combination, tailored to the pollinator, as one study found that entomophilous (insect-pollinated) species presented more diverse and two orders of magnitude stronger emissions of compounds than anemophilous (wind-pollinated) species.
Naturally, flowers have also conquered the human nose. From the Sassanian Emperors who used rose water as perfume in their celebrations, to Napoleon Bonaparte, who would have 50 bottles of cologne delivered to him every month and would also send his first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais, scented flowers like hyacinths and mignonettes all the way from Egypt.
More lately, EEG studies have demonstrated that lavender fragrance can increase beta power (relaxation), while rosemary can decrease alpha and beta power (increased alertness and excitement). Similar studies have found that other floral scents naturally diffused by flowers can also result in enhanced vigor and reduced depressed feelings.
No wonder why Michael Pollan has asked the provocative question of who domesticated whom, between humans and flowers. The more attractive we find a particular flower’s smell or image, the more of them we grow. Virtuously, it’s those aesthetic values and biological diversity of flowers that we have turned into a new layer for human relationships: romance.
Loved til she a
Ottoman Turkey used to play a game called Sélam, in which women gifted each other objects whose names rhymed with each of the other objects. In the 18th century, an English poet and aristocrat called Mary Wortley Montagu imported this idea to Europe and innovated on it by using living objects instead.
At a time when expressing your feelings was considered vulgar, Floriography bloomed as a socially acceptable medium to convey what is hard to write, let alone vocalize. Armed with Floral Dictionaries, Victorians would exchange talking bouquets that may express a wide range of emotions, from kennedias for mental beauty, jasmines for grace, hyacinths for sorrow, and laurels for glory.
As demonstrated by the poetic excerpt at the beginning of this piece, such dictionaries contained not only pages in which flowers became a language; they were too a space for educated Victorian women to participate in the shaping of cultural values and public commentary, as compilers of poetry, as well as essays on human virtues and vices — Bare in mind that you and your lover shall have spoken the same tongue, or else your love in translation might have been lost!
“…I can assure you,” Lady Mary wrote in a letter nearly 300 years ago, “there is as much fancy shown in the choice of [flowers] as in the most studied expressions of our letters...There is no color, no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble or feather that has not a verse belonging to it; and you may quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friendship, or even news, without ever inking your fingers.”
Laurel in time lived
Seemingly unrelated topics, pheromones and floriography, are united by the fact that both are lost languages. We buy flowers just because they’re somewhat pretty and available, maybe even because they’re cheap. We let strangers be the artists of our sexuality by giving in to artificially sexualized advertisements selling industrialized fragrances.
Many have tried to take advantage of the poor understanding we have about human attraction. From the US Air Force 90s Gay Bombs preposterous idea, to George Church’s allusion to a genetic social network where you could get matched to your other HLA half, and all those “pherum” companies out there that got me writing this piece in the first place.
For my future lover, I would instead like to create something real and pure; a living ode to a beautiful, spiritual, existence — C’mon, you didn’t open this piece on February 14 expecting it to be lame, did you? Romance, love… these are the things we stay alive for! Always intensely, without mediocrity ❤️🔥
Biology is coming back as a medium of expression. Imagine flowers tailored to express the personalized scent of your lover, or colors and shapes that were chosen specifically for you, with care. Poets of Living Objects rewrite the Victorian dictionaries by adding new floral letters, words, and phrases that anyone can use to communicate new meanings, new secrets, and perhaps express new love.
“For those will not be flowers; they will be songs, poems, paintings, stories, memories... time capsules of our love” — S
Stay tuned for the coming Biofounders episodes I recorded with Gigi Minsky who’s engineering scented plants at Senseory, a tour of Alan Perlstein’s lab-grown chocolate facility, Nick Desnoyer’s designer flowers, Ikenga Wines, and more! — February is the best month ;)