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From: fzcapit@MIZAR.UCDAVIS.EDU (John Capitanio)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Women's periods in synch
Message-ID: <00947359.6D267EA0@MIZAR.UCDAVIS.EDU>
Date: 16 Apr 91 13:54:07 GMT
References: <1991Apr16.013511.10385@agate.berkeley.edu>,<1991Apr16.014518.11307@agate.berkeley.edu>
Sender: usenet@aggie.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: fzcapit@MIZAR.UCDAVIS.EDU (John Capitanio)
Organization: University of California, Davis
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In article <1991Apr16.014518.11307@agate.berkeley.edu>, samdavis@maelstrom.Berkeley.EDU (Benjamin Davis) writes:
[stuff deleted]              
>In _The_Straight_Dope_, Cecil Adams explains that the reason women's periods
>fall into sync is because of chemicals from their sweat: it seems that some
>women are "dominant" in that their sweat causes other women's cycles to fall
>in with theirs, and other women are more susceptible to suggestion from the
>chemicals around them (I think these chemicals are pheromones?).  So if
>women live together or work together for extended periods (no pun intended)
>of time, their menstrual cycles will go in sync.
>The Straight Dope is a highly interesting collection of trivia - I
>recommend it even if you're not (like me) someone who generally likes trivia.

I meant to respond to the original post, but...
There has been considerable work, since the 1960s on olfactory signals
(pheromones) and their influence on as pects of reproduction.  Much
of the work has been done on rodents.  The original article demonstrating
(or at least suggesting) pheromonal mediation of menstrual synchrony and
suppression in humans is from M.K. McClintock, Menstrual synchrony and
suppression, *Nature*, 1971, vol. 229, 244-245.  Any good (and actually most
bad) textbooks on animal behavior can provide lots of references on the
rodent (and some primate) work.  I think McClintock has also been involved
with other research demonstrating the role of olfaction in social
identification.  These studies have included having people wear t-shirts
for a couple of days, putting them in jars, then asking people to smell
each one and select their own.  Another study I remember involved
babies discriminating between the breast pads of their own mother and those
of other lactating females.  A much underappreciated sensory system, olfaction.

I forget the references to the above studies.  If anyone has any interest,
let me know.

John