Recent studies have suggested the existence of human sex pheromones, with particular interest in two human steroids: androstadienone (androsta-4,16,-dien-3-one) and estratetraenol (estra-1,3,5(10),16-tetraen-3-ol). The current study takes a critical step to test the qualification of the two steroids as sex pheromones by examining whether they communicate gender information in a sex-specific manner. By using dynamic point-light displays that portray the gaits of walkers whose gender is digitally morphed from male to female [1, 2], we show that smelling androstadienone systematically biases heterosexual females, but not males, toward perceiving the walkers as more masculine. By contrast, smelling estratetraenol systematically biases heterosexual males, but not females, toward perceiving the walkers as more feminine. Homosexual males exhibit a response pattern akin to that of heterosexual females, whereas bisexual or homosexual females fall in between heterosexual males and females. These effects are obtained despite that the olfactory stimuli are not explicitly discriminable. The results provide the first direct evidence that the two human steroids communicate opposite gender information that is differentially effective to the two sex groups based on their sexual orientation. Moreover, they demonstrate that human visual gender perception draws on subconscious chemosensory biological cues, an effect that has been hitherto unsuspected.
We developed a novel transparent conductive film, molybdenum-doped indium oxide (IMO). Using normal thermal reactive evaporation without any special treatments, IMO films have been prepared on normal glass microscope slides at about 350 °C with electrical resistivity of 1.7×10−4 Ω cm, mobility over 100 cm2 V−1 s−1, and an average spectral transmittance in the visible region over 80%. From x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction spectra of the IMO films, it is confirmed that the lattice of IMO is the same as that of In2O3 of cubic bixbyite structure, Mo6+ substitutes for In3+ in In2O3, and there are no new compounds in IMO. The valence difference of 3 between Mo6+ and In3+ is of great advantage to the IMO film with high conductivity and high transparency simultaneously.
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