Petrichor

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rain

As Petri Choir will smell of rain on dry earth called.

The word is made up of ancient Greek πέτρα pétrā "rock, piece of rock" or πέτρος pétros "stone" and ἰχώρ īchṓr "blood of the gods " and was created in 1964 by two Australian researchers at CSIRO , Isabel J. Bear and Richard G. Thomas Article coined for the journal Nature . In the article, the authors describe how the odor is caused by an oil that certain plants secrete during dry periods, which in turn is absorbed by clay soils and rocks. During the rain, the oil is released, along with another compound called geosmin, released into the air. The connection creates the distinctive smell. In a follow-up report in 1965, Bear and Thomas showed that the oil delayed seed germination and early plant growth.

In research

In his book Life of Marsupials , C. Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe hypothesized that smell has an influence on the oestrus ( oestrus cycle) of kangaroos . Two studies found that 65% of the female kangaroos examined are in heat two weeks after a rain shower. Since the ovarian follicles need ten days to mature, there is a direct response to the rain shower. Tyndale-Biscoe assumes that the odor through the olfactory nerve creates a direct stimulus to the pituitary gland , similar to pheromones , and thereby activates the sexual cycle . According to Tyndale-Biscoe, however, there are no studies on this yet.

Petrichor is also associated with the custom of eating the earth . In her book Craving Earth , Sera L. Young describes ethnographic interviews in which the test subjects reacted with increased saliva production while describing the smell of freshly moistened earth . Young therefore sees Petrichor as an important factor in the selection of the suitability of the soil for consumption.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in January 2015 that the odor of rain is caused by small bubbles that form after the raindrops hit a surface. The bubbles rise and burst, eventually releasing aromatic aerosols and causing the typical rain smell.

Occurrence in pop culture

  • In the Discworld novel Heiße Hüpfer, the Ecksian people (analogous to the Australian Aborigines ) are referred to several times for the fact that they are the only culture on the disc that has a word for “the smell one gets after the rain " to have.
  • Neil Gaiman mentions the smell of the earth after the rain several times in his novel American Gods .
  • The word had a special role in the Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife (written by Neil Gaiman) as part of a telepathic password to enter an old TARDIS control room . The character Amy Pond had to imagine the "smell of dry earth after the rain". In a later episode of the same season, Amy can be seen in an advertisement for a perfume called Petrichor . The advertisement shows her face and a perfume bottle with the slogan "Petrichor - For the girl who is tired of waiting". (English: "Petrichor - For the girl who's tired of waiting")
  • In Barton Bishop's play Still the River Runs , brothers Jesse and Wyatt discuss a distinctive aroma that Wyatt identifies as Petrichor.
  • In Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning there is an item called Petrichore.
  • A track by the German rapper Tua on the bonus EP "(R) evia" (2014) is titled Petrichor , and it also flows into the lyrics as a metaphor.
  • The American singer and internet personality Poppy names Petrichor as one of her inspirations.
  • Petrichor is the name of a board game released in late 2017. In this one controls clouds and influences the weather.
  • In the German novel Wo die Dünen shimmer by Patricia Koelle, published in 2018, the protagonist tries to capture the smell of Petrichor in a body lotion, which is supposed to have a beneficial and healing effect on the soul.
  • On the 2018 album Dornenvögel by the Austrian post-black metal band Karg , a song is entitled Petrichor.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The Smell of Rain . In: Weatherwise . tape 33 , 1980, pp. 91 , doi : 10.1080 / 00431672.1980.9931898 (letter to the editor; apparently the printed text originally comes from a magazine published by CSIRO: Ecos , edition from February 1976, p. 32).
  2. ↑ a b Anu Garg: petrichor. In: Wordsmith.org. Retrieved May 1, 2020 .
  3. ^ Hjalmar Frisk: Greek etymological dictionary II, Heidelberg 1970, p. 522 f.
  4. ^ Hjalmar Frisk: Greek etymological dictionary I, Heidelberg 1960, p. 747.
  5. ^ IJ Bear, RG Thomas: Nature of Argillaceous Odor . In: Nature . tape 201 , March 1964, p. 993–995 , doi : 10.1038 / 201993a0 (English): “The diverse nature of the host materials has led us to propose the name 'petrichor' for this apparently unique odor which can be regarded as an 'ichor' or 'tenuous essence' derived from rock or stone […] it does not imply that petrichor is necessarily a fixed chemical entity but rather it denotes an integral odor, variable within a certain easily recognizable osmic latitude. "
  6. ^ IJ Bear, RG Thomas: Petrichor and Plant Growth . In: Nature . tape 207 , September 1965, p. 1415-1416 , doi : 10.1038 / 2071415a0 (English).
  7. ^ Tyndale-Biscoe, C. Hugh: Life of marsupials , Csiro Publishing, Australien 2005, p. 324, ISBN 9780643062573 .
  8. ↑ Young, Sera L .: Craving Earth: Understanding Pica, the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk , Columbia University Press, Columbia 2011, p. 6, ISBN 9780231146081 .
  9. ↑ “This is how the rain smell comes about” N24, accessed on January 20, 2015.
  10. ↑ brettspiel-news.de: "Petrichor" is now published by Schwerkraft Verlag
  11. ↑ Patricia Koelle: Where the dunes shimmer . Fischer Taschenbuch, 4th ed. 2018, 528 pp. ISBN 9783596297634