• Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Wording is funky. To clarify:

    The rain smell is due to a compound called geosmin. The bacteria that produces it is Streptomyces.

    When I taught microbiology lab, I would grow a petri dish of Streptomyces during one particular class and have the students smell it

    • Shellbeach@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      You mean… You can … Bottle up petrichore ??? How come is there no wide range of perfume/candle/lotion and whatnot?

      Can I make it at home, if so, how would I go about it with everyday items? Can streptomyces cause health issues?

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      1 month ago

      Well the smell of rain is actually petrichor, it just has a combination of geosmin and ozone and other chemicals that make that smell.

      Geosmin on its own is just a part of it.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      We evolved in the Savannah.
      Rain means the watering holes are filling up, which is obviously good cause we need water, but it also attracts prey animals.

      • DaCrazyJamez
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        1 month ago

        This, of course, was summarized most eloquently at the zenith of human evoloution: the 1982 hit single by Toto clearly stating, “I bless the rains down in Africa.”

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        You think rain is your ally?

        You merely adopted the damp. We Brits were born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see dry sand until I was already a man…

        • ladicius@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          The whole continent of Africa (as every other continent) went through several major climate changes, small and big. Pretty sure there were at least five major turnovers from wet to dry climate and back since then, and numerous before.

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            1 month ago

            Fun fact, there are some theories that the Sahara desert was actually caused by over foraging from early goat herding.

            So to a degree our ancestors may have already caused some climate change.

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          The North African region was a lush verdant region 11,000 years ago, which is not so long ago considering humans already spread far and wide around that time.

      • Windex007@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I’m still missing something here. For it to be useful, I’d imagine that it would need to inform decisions, and do so where existing senses would fail.

        At least in my environment, if I can smell rain, I could also just as easily use my eyes to see the cumulonimbus clouds and say “rain, due east”.

        In the savanna are there scenarios where the only awareness of rain would be smelling it? Can you derive directionality at 5 parts per trillion? Does it matter?

        • The Stoned Hacker@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          you can smell it coming before you see it imo. that gives you time to get to shelter and to move to where the water/food is

      • MBM@lemmings.world
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        1 month ago

        You’d think more African animals (especially predators) would have that ability, then

    • ricecake
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      1 month ago

      It’s worth remembering that evolution doesn’t select for the best as much as it selects against the worst.

      The reason we have such sensitivity doesn’t have to be particularly game changing as long as it doesn’t make us less likely to reproduce.

      You can plainly see our big niche adaptations being used everyday. We think good. We recognize patterns. We use tools. We walk a lot, efficiently and upright. We communicate with high precision. We have a surprisingly efficient digestive system.

      We’re not busting out the ability to smell rain super often, which hints that it might be more in the “doesn’t hurt” category instead of being a big advantage.

      My guess is that being able to smell disturbed soil is helpful for tracking, either where an animal has run or where something has been buried. Our ancestors were not above digging up a fresh-ish dead animal a canine had buried for later.
      But it could just be that rain sense slightly more accurate than looking towards the horizon was as useful then as it is now: vaguely, I guess? It just doesn’t hurt anything.

    • odium@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      my theory is natural selection of humans/human ancestor species. The ones who didn’t find shelter in time before a rain were more likely to die.

  • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    Average human male dick length is 2.7cm erect.

    Based on my study with a sample size of 1

  • frank@sopuli.xyz
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    1 month ago

    It’s also an off flavor that tasters train for in beer, from water inclusion. It’s not good for beer but I don’t mind the smell at all

    Very beet-flavored to me

  • JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I lost my smell to COVID in that first year, before the vaccine. Recently and for the first time since, I smelled petrichor and I could have cried.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      1 month ago

      It is also that.

      Petrichor is the smell of rain and is a term like Channelle #5 where it’s a combination of ozone and geosmin and other compounds.

        • can
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          1 month ago

          I remember the feeling and the sound, but not scent.

          • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            Smells kinda dry and vaguely fishy/metallic. It’s very distinct, you know it when you smell it.

            Should be noted however that it’s not very healthy to breathe it in and large and/or repeated exposures can cause respiratory damage. Some static electricity is probably fine but I don’t want to encourage someone to go out there and learn what it smells like first hand

        • propter_hog [any, any]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          When I first started learning how to weld, I always wore a respirator because a lot of the fumes can be dangerous. So anyway, we come back to the shop after our lunch break and my first thought was damn, what’s that smell?

    • Album@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Diff smell.

      I call this ‘outside’ smell and you can smell it on a clear day.

  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Hmm. Seems strangely on point that Ichor is the blood of the (greek) gods. (Petro- means stone, as in Petro-Oleum.)

    Fee-fi-fo-fod

    I smell the blood of a god

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Wish we could be sensitive to H2S, would have saved a lot of lives.

    EDIT: On second thought, no, fuck around pumping fossil fuels and find out.

    • ryedaft
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      1 month ago

      Make every fart a million times worse.