- "They can smell it on our skin." Smell what, I hear you asking? Rotten milk. Apparently the Japanese call us the butter people because they can smell "rotten, putrefying" milk. Seems a bit unlikely but hey, maybe the people that visit Japan like bathing in milk. Who am I to refute this claim, I've never been there? Its the next part that gets my hackles a-goin'. He states that there are two amino acids responsible for this. Just a little background for those who have forgoteen (I'm sure none of you would have, but its just a kindness sort of thing). There are 20 amino acids that exist, and their purpose in life is to be bonded together to make polypeptides, generally in the form of proteins or hormones. With just that limited knowledge you may actually believe what Mr. Cohen says. Well don't, theres more info to come. Every single protein starts out with methionine. I repeat EVERY protein starts out with a methionine. It is the start codon. The beginning point. Without it, there would be no proteins (by the way he spells it wrong if you ever look around. He's dumb, I know). Turns out cysteine actually exists, though I hadn't heard of it (hold in the shock people, I'm not all knowing). Robert says that we smell like rotten eggs because of the sulfur in these. First of all, the rotten egg smell is not pure sulfur atoms floating around, its sulfuric compounds; second of all, both molecules have just one atom of sulfur in them, and they don't just let them go. They stay in your cells doing helpful things like keeping us alive. They don't have time to be floating around making sulfurous compounds and being sniffed by the Japanese. These molecules are busy little buggers I tell you. No time to bandy with foreigners.
You Are Probably in the Wrong Place
13 years ago
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