Scientists have long known that some animals can sense danger in the air, but little was known about how they did it. Now they have a clue. According to a report in Science, specialized neural cells in mice that are part of the olfactory system can detect unidentified alarm pheromones given off by other mice under stress. The scientists collected air from around stressed mice and then exposed other mice to it. Normal mice froze (a typical danger reaction in mice) when exposed to the alarm-pheromone scented air, whereas mice whose special olfactory neural cells had been destroyed did not respond to alarm-pheromone scented air at all.
It would be interesting to know whether humans also give off alarm pheromones. Could this be an explanation for why people seem to internalize the stress of others around them?
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