The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
So, all of this is to say is that chemical-chemical signaling is happening from females to males through tears, we know that. Is that a pheromonal effect? Well, by the strict definition of a pheromone, a molecule that is released from one individual that impacts the biology of another individual, yes. But in terms of identifying what the pheromone is in tears, that's still unknown, it's not clear what the chemical compound is.
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Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
As I mentioned earlier, the effect of tears in suppressing the areas of the brain that are involved in sexual desire and testosterone of males, that's a concrete result, that's a very good result published by an excellent group with no pre-existing bias going in, that's just what they found.