Researchers have identified an odorless compound emitted by people—and in particular babies—called hexadecanal, or HEX, that appears to foster aggressive behavior in women and blunt it in men. “We cannot say that this is a pheromone,” says study author Noam Sobel, a neuroscientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. “But we can say that it’s a molecule expressed by the human body that influences human behavior, specifically aggressive behavior, in a predicted manner.”

— Read more in Chemical emitted by babies could make men more docile, women more aggressive at Science.

It’s difficult to say that humans have pheromones, because we have not yet been able to characterize specific molecules that elicit predictable interactions. Humans are really messy creatures to study, right? There’s a lot of cognitive factors that might play into the way that you respond to an odor that other animals just don’t have, but it certainly seems like we are emitting certain chemical signals that have social value.

— Jessica Gaby, assistant professor of psychology at Middle Tennessee State University. Read more in Is an irresistible human pheromone possible? at WHYY.

In the hope of clearing up the confusion, a group of researchers led by Robin Hare of the University of Western Australia have performed one of the most stringent studies to date.

[...] The study thus found no evidence that either AND or EST is a pheromone. Those who buy pheromone perfumes based on them would therefore appear to be wasting their money.

— Read more at My chemical romance: Two putative human sex pheromones turn out not to be at The Economist.