Real Girls: Can you tell a person's gender by how their hand smells?


	September 23, 2024

Original photo by Pixel-Shot/ Shutterstock

Women and men may have different hand odors.

No two humans smell exactly alike, because odor is a complex medley of aromatic influences that come from our environment, genes, and various secretions; all of these add up to what's known as our volatile organic compound (VOC). Gender can also be a differentiating factor, as a 2023 study from Florida International University discovered. As part of the experiment, 30 self-described men and 30 self-described women grasped cotton balls for 10 minutes in hands that hadn't been washed for at least an hour. Those cotton balls were then analyzed using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify the individual chemicals that made up the various VOCs of the participants. Using a type of data analysis known as chemometrics, the researchers were able to identify the gender of the participant based on their hand odor with stunning 96.67% accuracy. In other words, men's and women's hands seem to produce different odors.

Such a fact aligns with a variety of evidence that humans have subtle aromatic differences. Diseases have particular smells (acute diabetes smells like rotten apples, for example) and diet can also play a role. One study even discovered that single males smell differently than their partnered counterparts, mainly due to differences in testosterone levels. As for our hands, this subtle chemical fingerprint could one day inspire new tools for forensic scientists to analyze crime scenes. But for now, our fragrant hands remain primarily an aromatic oddity.

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The evolution of the human hand begins with a 380 million-year-old fish.

Go back far enough in time, and all humans share the same fishy ancestor. Therefore, it's not surprising that some scientists think that certain aspects of the human body still reflect our past life in the water. Hiccuping, for example, has been theorized as a leftover spasm from back when we sported gills, and humans (as well as most other animals) look distinctly fishlike when we're embryos. Even features that seem uniquely human, such as our dexterous hands, may be evolutionary gifts from our water-dwelling ancestors. For decades, scientists believed that the evolutionary journey of the human hand began with tetrapods, otherwise known as our four-legged, terrestrial forebears. However, recent research found that an ancient fish known as Elpistostege watsoni, which lived during the Late Devonian period, evolved the digits and radial bones that eventually became our hands and feet. Scientists theorize that hands developed in these ancient fish as a way to support body weight, allowing the animals to perform "push-ups" in shallow water for gulping down fresh air. As hard as it may be to fathom that land-dwelling Homo sapiens actually has an aquatic origin story, it's an ancient tale that's etched into our very biology.