• @Contramuffin
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    10615 hours 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

  • @[email protected]
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    14 hours ago

    Average human male dick length is 2.7cm erect.

    Based on my study with a sample size of 1

  • Live Your Lives
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    6616 hours ago

    Why would we need such a strong sensitivity to it?

    • @[email protected]
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      12916 hours 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.

      • @[email protected]
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        4613 hours 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.”

      • @Windex007
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        610 hours 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
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          24 hours 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

      • @[email protected]
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        2814 hours 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…

      • EleventhHour
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        1015 hours ago

        Was that area a desert 250,000 years ago?

        • @ladicius
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          1515 hours 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.

          • @[email protected]
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            13 hours 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
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          515 hours 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.

    • @MunkyNutts
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      2116 hours ago

      Maybe an evolutionary trait to locate water?

    • @[email protected]
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      16 hours 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.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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        1515 hours ago

        I think it’s more than those who couldn’t find water died, within 3 days.

  • @[email protected]
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    2316 hours 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

    • @[email protected]
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      1015 hours 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.

      • lnxtx
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        715 hours ago

        Or poliester fleece or blanket when you hear little sparks.
        Some will remember playing with a CRT TV screen 👀

          • @[email protected]
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            13 hours 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

    • Album
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      716 hours ago

      Diff smell.

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

      • @[email protected]
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        313 hours ago

        There’s also fat volatiles in our skin that metals and sunlight degrade, so that outside smell could be the smell of you in the sun.

      • Shawdow194
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        215 hours ago

        I find I smell it more often this time of year. I guess the heavier and colder air?

    • @rtxn
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      415 hours ago

      I love the smell of redistributed ood in the morning.

  • @finitebanjo
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    16 hours 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.