In these times of uncertainty, many people are feeling threatened from losing their jobs, bills they can’t pay, lost of health insurance and the list goes on.

What researchers at Rice University wants to know is whether the smell of fear facilitates humans’ other stronger senses.

When threatened, many animals release chemicals as a warning signal to members of their own species, who in turn react to the signals and take action. Research by Rice University psychologist Denise Chen suggests a similar phenomenon occurs in humans.

Chen and graduate student Wen Zhou collected “fearful sweat” samples from male volunteers. The volunteers kept gauze pads in their armpits while they were shown films that dealt with topics known to inspire fear.

Later, female volunteers were exposed to chemicals from the “fearful sweat” when they were fitted with a piece of gauze under their nostrils.  They then viewed images of faces that morphed from happy to ambiguous to fearful. They were asked to indicate whether the face was happy or fearful by pressing buttons on a computer.

Exposure to the smell of fear biased women toward interpreting facial expressions as more fearful, but only when the expressions were ambiguous.  It had no effect when the facial emotions were more discernable.

Cellulosic biofuels offer similar, if not lower, costs and very large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to petroleum-derived fuels. That’s one of the key take-home messages from a series of expert papers on “The Role of Biomass in America’s Energy Future (RBAEF)” in a special issue of Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining.

Professor Lee Lynd, from Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering is co-author of five of the eight papers in the special issue.

“We conclude that mature biomass refining is highly competitive with the fuels currently available, based on all the factors considered” says Professor Lynd. “The most promising class of processes we analysed combined the biological fermentation of carbohydrates to fuels with advanced technologies that thermochemically convert process residues to electrical power and, or, additional liquid fuels. One of our important findings, which contradicts conventional wisdom, is that similar greenhouse gas emission reductions on a per ton biomass basis are anticipated for the production of liquid fuels and electricity via mature technology.”

The researchers also found that the mature cellulosic biofuel technologies analysed:

• Have the potential to realize efficiencies on par with petroleum-based fuels.
• Require modest volumes of process water.
• Achieve production costs consistent with gasoline when oil prices are at about $30 a barrel.