• Former Canberra Skeptics President Neil Woodger has invited us to an interesting event next Tuesday 27th July. This is a "CHRISTMAS IN JULY " dinner organised by the ACT Branch of the Australian Psychological Association. There are a few seats available and Skeptics are welcome. But Neil needs to know pronto if you are interested. Ring on 0402 026 067 or email him at neilwood@netspeed.com.au .

• The dinner (6.30 for 7 pm at The Habit Restaurant at O'Connor Shops, MacPherson St) will be followed by special after dinner entertainment − "THE MENTALIST: IS HE REALLY PSYCHIC?" with Phillip Bevan − well known local magician and mentalist. Phillip came recommended by the Aust. Skeptics in Sydney. Cost is $50 per head (inclusive of the after dinner mind games). The menu looks splendid (ask Neil) − vegetarians need to be identified.

• Stuffing night help needed. Next Wednesday 28th July the Pedal Power ACT Magazine is stuffed for mailing. As we are inserting the flyer for the Ride for the Planet in the Magazine, your Hon President volunteered to help and bring some skeptics too! Is anyone out there who is a, or a would be, peddler and free from 7.00 pm to help? It's in Wanniassa. Ring me (Pete) on 62964555 if available.

Swap your best (worst?) black Friday bad luck stories and urban myths from 6.00 pm on. The best will be collated for a future Argos.

In view of the sparse attendance (in numbers, not in quality) at the Wig and Pen on the 13th July and the good turn up for the Glühwein and Pizzas on 13th June, we have decided to meet at Julie McCarron-Benson's café (Cafétopia,1 Hackett Place, Hackett) instead. This, unlike the W & P, is a BYO establishment that can provide a meal, but let Julie know [tel 6257 0880 (W); 6239 6403 (H)] if you want to eat. Anyone who needs a lift, let Pete know (tel 6296 4555).

Fri 13th Aug, 6.00 pm. Social evening at Cafétopia. BYO drink. Order meal in advance.

Sat 21st Aug, 1.00 pm. Forum on Global Warming. CSIRO Discovery Centre

Sat 21st Aug, 7.00 pm. Dinner and Debate "This house believes global warming is a Good Thing"

Sun 22nd Aug, 10.30 am. Ride for the Planet. Hall to Parliament House.

Mon 13th Sep. 7.30 for 8.00 pm. Dr Tom Gavranic OAM. "Dermis, Doonas and Depression" Canberra Bridge Club, Deakin.

Wed 13th Oct. 7.30 for 8.00 pm.

Thur 23rd Oct. The Earth's birthday dinner and AGM.

Mid-November. Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer).

Mon 13th Dec. Christ's birthday party. Venue to be arranged

• To date registrations for the Environment Forum, just a month away, total 19. We have organised some outstanding experts to speak, so please register now so your hard working committee can sleep at night. Either use the form from the flyer, or download one from http://finch.customer.netspace.net.au/skeptics/ or register through the Skeptics store.
• International Skeptics conference will be held in Italy, at Padua (which is 30 mins drive from Venice) from October 8-10, 2004.
• Registration for the Annual Skeptics Convention to be held in Sydney (12-14 Nov) is now possible at http://www.skeptics.com.au/ where the provisional program may also be viewed.

The Glühwein and Pizzas event on Sunday 13 June at Julie McCarron-Benson's café (Cafetopia 1 Hackett Place, Hackett) was most successful and the use of port in the glühwein quickly relaxed everyone and was considered a Good Thing (by most).

Jill Gordon's talk on Friday 25th June ("A sceptical view of psychotherapy") at the Canberra Bridge Club, Deakin, was attended by around 40 who were entertained with an illuminating account of how so often patients visiting GPs are seeking a shoulder to cry on, reassurance etc and present with symptoms which are stress-related and need talking through. GPs often do not have the time, so psychologists and various other health professionals have a valuable role in helping these patients. In contrast conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder need the involvement of expert specialist clinicians. Several members met for dinner at the Bamboo Inn beforehand, and it was agreed this was a Good Idea. The Bridge Club is pretty central and has DIY catering, which keeps costs down. We will use this venue whenever we can until the new Griffin Centre opens.

Lynne Kelly's talk on Thursday 8th July ("Science and the paranormal − a writer's perspective") at the RSL, Civic, was most informative and highly entertaining. Those of you out there who didn't come should be kicking yourselves. We still have a few of her books for sale at $20. Around half the 56 attending met beforehand for a convivial meal with the speaker at the Little Saigon. For photographs of the event see http://www.users.on.net/~ct/skeptic/kelly/act/

Our website continues to be updated by Jim Foley (thanx Jim!) and may be accessed (for those willing to search for it) via a link at http://www.skeptics.com.au/. A quicker alternative is to log into http://finch.customer.netspace.net.au/skeptics/

7. News from the Committee.

The Committee is delighted to welcome Stephen Wilks into its ranks. The Committee is now

In the last mail we received some copies of the Indian Skeptic (Vol 16 (Nos 1-4,8,11,12); Vol 17 (No 6) variously dated 2003, 2004). Anyone wishing to borrow these, please contact our librarian (to be appointed).

Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) will be the keynote speaker at the Annual Convention in Sydney. He will be visiting Canberra in the middle of November and giving a talk at a date to be arranged.

Eighteen new members who have joined since early June. A special thanks to existing members for spreading the word. We extend a warm welcome to Sophie Calarni and Graham Kelly Jr (Melba) and Elena Kelly (Hackett) [goodonyer GK Sr], Ken and Frances Dalgleish (Chisolm), Jenny Dibley (Bungendore), Bernadette Garside (Holt), Nick Lhuede, Krystin Minos (Red Hill), John Mitchell (Fisher), Michael Rochler (Calwell), Krystin Traynor (Weston), Alec Turpie (Curtin), Rosemary White (CSIRO), Judy Whitlock (Garran), Dorothea Wagner (Chisholm), Satish Narayan (Yarralumla) and Dave Wheeler (Gordon).

My appeal to skeptics out there to add their bit to the Argos didn't score pay dirt but did unearth this nugget from John Moss: he wrote "We have been told that by placing a champagne cork in the bed, muscular cramps are alleviated. We tried it and found it to work. Is there any physical explanation? Once I had a bad cramp and found that the cork wasn't in the bed. Why champagne corks? Are you sceptical?"

Now I know very little about leg cramps except that − from experience − they are bloody painful if not released. At age 29 I had my legs in full plaster and the muscles in both went into spasm − I passed out with the pain, which resolved the problem. Muscle cramps are common, and 1 in 3 over the age of 60 may have regular attacks, usually at night. The muscles of the lower leg (especially the calf) and feet are most commonly affected. A Google on "night cramps" yielded the following.

http://www.medicinenet.com/Muscle_Cramps/article.htm states "The actual cause of night cramps is unknown. Sometimes, such cramps seem to be initiated by making a movement that shortens the muscle, which then cramps. An example is pointing the toe down while lying in bed, which shortens the calf muscle ……. Low blood levels of either calcium or magnesium ……may be a predisposing factor for the spontaneous "true" cramps experienced by many older adults, as well as for those that are commonly noted during pregnancy. Cramps are seen in any circumstance that decreases the availability of calcium or magnesium in body fluids, such as from diuretics, hyperventilation (overbreathing), excessive vomiting, inadequate calcium and/or magnesium in the diet, inadequate calcium absorption due to vitamin D deficiency, poor function of the parathyroid gland (a tiny gland in the neck that regulates calcium balance) and other conditions… Most cramps can be stopped if the muscle can be stretched. For many cramps of the feet and legs, this stretching can often be accomplished by standing up and walking around. …. One enthusiastic non-scientific recommendation has been to firmly pinch the tissues above the lip, just under the nose, and hold the pinch until the cramp stops (said to be within 15 minutes.) Of course, why this might work, or even if it is causing anything that wouldn't have happened anyway, is uncertain, and no scientific study of this technique has been reported….. Night cramps and other rest cramps can often be prevented by regular stretching exercises, particularly if done before going to bed …. It may also help to avoid flexing the foot and pointing one's toes while in bed. For older people, it is uncommon to determine an exact cause for night cramps. The best prevention involves implementing the following measures: stretching regularly, adequate fluid intake, appropriate calcium and vitamin D intake, supplemental vitamin E, and possibly -- with physician consultation -- supplemental magnesium intake.

My first reaction to John's letter was yes I am skeptical and no I can't see any physical explanation for corks in the bed preventing night cramps. It must be a placebo effect. And the bad cramp the night the cork wasn't there was just coincidence. But the question as to "Why champagne corks?" set me thinking. Was it the prior consumption of a full bottle of champagne before retiring with the resulting relaxation that was the answer? (A full bottle because it goes flat and would otherwise be wasted). Or was it because of the shape of the cork? After all it's bigger than a standard cork and does have a sharp edge.

Now the brain is able to immobilize the limbs during dream sleep. Those recurring dreams of leaden or non-functioning legs when fleeing some terror are evidence of this. The reason is so that when you dream of kicking that winning goal your partner doesn't involuntarily end up in a heap in the en-suite. And when you dream you are running to catch a train or avoid a pack of wolves you don't leap out of bed and land in a tangle of sheets and blankets at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe night cramps (among the other causes mentioned above) are a consequence of being immobilized too long.

Anyway the other night Vicki and I retired to bed (sober) with a couple of old (stored) champagne corks to test a theory. The following morning the answer to John's question was clear. Yes there is a physical explanation. You spend the whole night moving around in bed to get the damn corks away from you thus continually stretching the calf – plus a variety of other – muscles. And as a result of kicking up the sheets at the end of the bed in the process, they don't press on your toes anymore. QED.

Lyn Kelly's highly entertaining introduction to various supposedly paranormal topics reminded me of my Border collie. This animal, not rendered to a pile of ashes by spontaneous combustion, but by incineration, now lives in a tin in the dining room sideboard. As his image keeps flashing up on my computer I am clearly in regular communication with the dead, though as a skeptic, I suspect someone has been fiddling with the screen saver. These ashes are being kept so I can make my fortune. When diluted 30C as a homoepathic remedy, they should be an effective cure for those dying from extensive burns.

My dog was psychic. No question. He could detect a snake in the grass at 10 metres, and a bitch on heat at a 1000. He smiled at people who liked dogs − and snarled at those who were afraid of them. And even at the end, though totally deaf and blind, would wander off around Kambah, avoid the traffic, and find his way home. And he would jump into the car when he sensed we were getting ready for a trip. How come? Clearly through his acute sense of smell.

The sense of smell in humans may be sharpened in certain circumstances e.g. the comment by Joe Simpson (in "Touching the Void") about smelling water when he was so acutely dehydrated. I have long held the view that the sixth sense in humans is subliminal detection of odours. There is now increasing evidence this is a fact − as we shall see − possibly involving vomeronasal organ ducts which, unlike normal olfactory tissues, connect directly to the accessory olfactory system (at least in rodents) thereby by-passing the cerebral cortex and the conscious mind [http://www.hhmi.org/senses/d230.html]. If this is also the case in humans, the mind boggles as to what use lawyers will make of it. So those skeptics devising experiments to test psychics claiming telepathic skills should bear this in mind, or they may have to part with the Prize. [See my poem at the end of these Ramblings].

As any microbiologist will tell you, your body odour [or even aura; see the poem] is mostly a result of microbes at work, though injudicious consumption of herbs (read garlic) or drink (read too much of the old vin rouge) can add to the mix. Dabbing on perfume was a way of disguising the fact − until recently. Now there is a huge market in applying rather rank smelling stuff for rather different reasons.

Any entomologist will tell you insect body odour has everything to do with sex. And this appears also to be the case in numerous studies on a variety of vertebrates. But what about humans? Some experiments in the 1970s and 1980s suggested this might be so; thus − yes, you've guessed it − there is now a massive market for various human secretions designed to turn on the opposite sex. These may be synthesized, or derived from boars, human corpses or, of course, involve secret herbs. Or, in Japan, sold in vending machines in the form of schoolgirls' used panties (no, it's not an urban myth). So do these work − or is this just another scam?

On doing a Google for the background to these ramblings I came across an article by Etienne Benson published in the journal of the American Psychological Association (APA 33(9) 46-48; 2002). Rather than paraphrasing it, I have reproduced it below with minor editing. [Sadly, I note, in this article, real doctors are referred to as "PhD" rather than as "Dr". Maybe this is because you can buy PhD degrees from certain establishments these days, or because too many practitioners of various arts have been given the title Dr as a courtesy]. Here is the article.

"Pheromones, in context. [Etienne Benson]

In a field plagued by murky results and marketing hype, a few things are finally becoming clear.

This is a field of research where the opinions of experts range from gung-ho boosterism to outright skepticism, where accusations of data fudging and sexism fly, and where the popular press is always watching from the sidelines, ready to trumpet each new claim and counterclaim to the world as soon as it is made.

On one side of the debate are the pheromone boosters, some of whom have founded companies that sell pheromone-based perfumes and pharmaceuticals. On the other side are skeptics who argue that the phrase "human pheromone" is a contradiction in terms. Between the two extremes lies a middle ground of researchers who are doubtful of the strongest claims but unwilling to ignore the possibility that humans, like many other animals, use chemicals to communicate.

Among them is Martha McClintock, PhD, who can be credited with starting the human pheromone phenomenon. In 1971, the University of Chicago psychologist, then an undergraduate at Wellesley College, published a study showing that the menstrual periods of women who lived together tended to converge on the same time every month, an effect thought to be mediated by pheromones.

Now, more than 30 years later, McClintock and others in the middle ground are finally making progress in under-standing the effects of human pheromones. Many aspects of the field remain unclear – including the definition of the term "pheromone" itself [see below¹] – but at least one conclusion can be drawn from the research conducted so far: their effects are far more dependent on social and psychological context than originally suspected.

Stoplights and sweaty underarms

When McClintock first began studying menstrual synchrony in the 1970s, data addressing how one woman could affect the hormonal cycle of another was nonexistent. But it seemed plausible that pheromones were responsible, especially since one of the original definitions of the term described them as "ectohormones," substances that worked between individuals in much the same way that "endohormones," like testosterone and estrogen, worked within them.

There were hints that the pheromones in question were associated with underarm secretions, but it took until 1998 for McClintock and Kathleen Stern, PhD, to show that fluids collected from a donor woman's underarms, when applied to the upper lip of a female recipient, could hasten or delay the recipient's menstrual period. The study fell short of identifying the exact chemicals responsible, but even many skeptics agree that it provides strong evidence for the existence of human pheromones.

The pheromones thought to be responsible for menstrual synchrony are known as "primers" – substances that can influence long-term changes in hormone levels, such as those that take place during the menstrual cycle, the onset of puberty or pregnancy. But researchers were also eager to find evidence for human "releasers" – quick-acting pheromones that in non-human animals can trigger stereotypical behavioral responses, such as sexual intercourse. Although some were skeptical that any stimulus – auditory, visual, tactile or chemical – could elicit stereotyped behaviors in humans, others were more optimistic.

Those researchers focused their attention on so-called sex attractants like androstenone, a substance found in boar saliva, and "copulins," primate vaginal secretions that supposedly triggered male mating behavior. When further research showed that these substances had mixed or minimal effects in humans, however, excitement within the scientific community died down. But interest continued outside the scientific community, and some researchers founded companies to develop and market pheromone-based products intended to boost self-confidence or sexual attractiveness. Two of the substances that received the most attention were the hormone-like chemicals androstadienone and estratetraenol, which are found in human sweat.

"The idea was that men produce androstadienone and that's a sex attractant to women, and women produce estratetraenol and that's a sex attractant to men," explains McClintock, who is critical of the claims made by many commercial pheromone companies. "Then they backed off from the sex attraction and modulated it more, to say, 'Well, it just makes you feel more self-confident and open to social communication'."

"We have found that these compounds do have very interesting effects on psychological state and brain function," she adds, "but it's not the simple picture that was originally portrayed."

In 2000, McClintock and then-graduate student Suma Jacob, PhD, now a medical resident at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported that androstadienone and estratetraenol's effects on behavior were both sex- and context-dependent. In one experiment, the chemicals improved women's mood but had the opposite effect on men; in another experiment, they kept women's mood from deteriorating over the course of the testing session, but didn't improve it. McClintock and Jacob concluded that if the substances were indeed pheromones, they were modulators, not releasers – substances that affect behavior by altering psychological state, not by triggering fixed responses.

Meanwhile, researchers like Winnifred Cutler, PhD, one of those who founded companies to market pheromone-based perfume additives in the 1980s, were trying to show that the substances worked as advertised. In 1998, she reported that her male perfume additive significantly increased men's likelihood of having sex. Last spring [March 2002], San Francisco State University psychologist Norma McCoy, PhD, reported similar results using Cutler's female perfume additive.

In McCoy's view, their studies show that the pheromones work under real-world conditions, regardless of laboratory results. "I think that we've once and for all demonstrated that this pheromone, however it's constituted, does have powers over the other sex," she says. "There is something that makes women attractive, and it can be very, very powerful."

Charles Wysocki, PhD, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, disagrees. "There's no good evidence in the biomedical literature that these are human pheromones," he says. According to his analysis of McCoy's data, the additive appeared to work only because women who received the placebo and the "pheromone" started out with different levels of sexual activity, then regressed toward the mean – a statistical flaw disguised by the study's data analysis methods.

McClintock, too, remains skeptical. Social and psychological conditions are important mediators of pheromonal effects, she says, and any claims that a particular product will increase the user's opportunities for sexual intercourse regardless of context are, in her opinion, misleading. "It's like saying that if you see a red light, you cannot control yourself from stopping no matter the circumstance," says McClintock. "Human behavior just isn't like that in any domain."

A dead-end duct?

The debate over whether pheromones affect human behavior is hardly over, but at least enough evidence has been collected that a consensus has emerged on some effects, such as menstrual synchrony. In contrast, the biological details of how pheromones affect humans remain "a total mystery", according to Cornell University psychologist Robert Johnston, PhD – although a few tantalizing clues are beginning to emerge.

In 1999, Noam Sobel, PhD, and his colleagues at Stanford University used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that the human brain responded to androstadienone even when subjects were unable to smell it, a result confirmed in a later study by Jacob, McClintock and their colleagues. In 2001, Ivanka Savic, PhD, and her colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden reported that androstadienone and estratetraenol affected men and women's brains differently: The former boosted hypothalamic activity only in women, while the latter increased hypothalamic activity only in men. The hypothalamus influences the pituitary gland's release of hormones, so it is in a key position to affect reproductive behavior.

Despite these suggestive neuroimaging results, it remains unclear how the presence of pheromones is communicated to the brain. In many animals, a pair of tiny ducts in the nasal septum called the vomeronasal organ (VNO) is responsible for detecting pheromones, but the evidence for a working human VNO is mixed at best. Because the main olfactory epithelium, where ordinary smells are detected, can also detect pheromones in some animals, the absence of a VNO would not rule out the possibility of human pheromones. But its presence would be a major support for the pheromone boosters.

In a series of experiments in the 1990s, researchers at the University of Utah claimed to have shown not only that the human VNO existed, but that adrostadienone and estratetraenol elicited different electrical responses in the VNOs of men and women. The result parallels that of Savic's neuroimaging study and, if true, would provide for a pathway for pheromones to influence the brain. However, because the Utah group is also heavily invested in a pheromone-based pharmaceutical company, many researchers are skeptical of their results, especially since no one has yet discovered a functional nerve linking the VNO to the human brain.

"I don't see any serious scientific flaws in the experiments they've published, but then again, they haven't published everything they've done," says Michael Meredith, PhD, a professor of neuroscience at Florida State University, who recently reviewed the evidence for the human VNO. He concluded that the evidence remains equivocal, and that only further research – by other groups of researchers – will resolve the debate. Bernard Grosser, MD, chair of the psychiatry department at the University of Utah, acknowledges that a pathway from VNO to brain remains to be found, but he says he is confident that one exists. "Anyone who has gone in and duplicated the work we've done has found essentially the same results," he says.

In some ways, the VNO question is a distraction from the main issue, which is how pheromones affect human behavior. Knowing the answer to one question tells you very little about the other, says Sobel, now a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Ultimately the question of whether there is such a thing as a human pheromone will depend on tying specific chemicals to specific neural, behavioral or psychological responses – and on coming to some agreement about what a pheromone is in the first place.

Future studies may settle some of these controversies. McCoy hopes to extend her work on sex pheromones to postmenopausal women. McClintock intends to study the influence of odors given off by breast-feeding women on the fertility of other women. Meredith, Johnston and others plan to continue studying the biological mechanisms by which chemical messages affect social behavior in rodents and other animals.

How important these substances are in everyday life remains an open question. But whether or not one believes that human pheromones are sex attractants, as McCoy and Cutler do, there are still a number of social domains in which chemical messages could have an important effect, says McClintock.

"In animals, [pheromones] are involved very strongly in care of offspring, in recognizing members of your social group, in recognizing family members," she says. "In thinking about what the normal function might be, we know from the animal work that we need to think broadly in social terms and that the same compound might serve differently in different contexts.

"The field of physiological or biopsychology typically looks at how biology causes changes in behavior," she adds. "What we're trying to do is say that that's a very reductionist approach, and what is really important is to realize that psychology and social interaction also regulate the biology."