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The joy of sweat : the strange science of perspiration / Sarah Everts.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2021]Edition: First editionDescription: 285 pages ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780393635676
  • 0393635678
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction -- The science of sweat. To sweat is human ; Sweat like a pig ; The sweet smell of you -- Sweat and society. Love stinks ; Hot rocks ; Sweatprints ; Fake sweat -- The war on sweat. A rose by any other name ; Arming the armpit ; Extreme sweat ; Sweat stains.
Summary: "A taboo-busting romp through the shame, stink, and strange science of sweating. Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it's also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts goes behind the taboo and delves into its role in the body-and in human history. She reveals the wondrous mechanics of the sweat glands and the millions of sweat pores in human skin. She explores why sweat is salty, why what you eat can affect the color of your sweat, and why we sweat when stressed (and whether it can be controlled). She takes part in a sweat dating event, traces the controversial history of antiperspirants and deodorants, considers the purported health benefits of saunas, sweat lodges, and hammams, and investigates whether "eyewitnesses" to a crime may someday be replaced by "nose-witnesses" who can pick a suspect's body odor out of a police lineup"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 612.793 E93 Available 33111010541981
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it's also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts delves into its role in the body--and in human history.

Why is sweat salty? Why do we sweat when stressed? Why do some people produce colorful sweat? And should you worry about Big Brother tracking the hundreds of molecules that leak out in your sweat--not just the stinky ones or alleged pheromones--but the ones that reveal secrets about your health and vices?

Everts's entertaining investigation takes readers around the world--from Moscow, where she participates in a dating event in which people sniff sweat in search of love, to New Jersey, where companies hire trained armpit sniffers to assess the efficacy of their anti-sweat products. In Finland, Everts explores the delights of the legendary smoke sauna and the purported health benefits of good sweat, while in the Netherlands she slips into the sauna theater scene, replete with costumes, special effects, and towel dancing.

Along the way, Everts traces humanity's long quest to control sweat, culminating in the multibillion-dollar industry for deodorants and antiperspirants. And she shows that while sweating can be annoying, our sophisticated temperature control strategy is one of humanity's most powerful biological traits.

Deeply researched and written with great zest, The Joy of Sweat is a fresh take on a gross but engrossing fact of human life.

Introduction -- The science of sweat. To sweat is human ; Sweat like a pig ; The sweet smell of you -- Sweat and society. Love stinks ; Hot rocks ; Sweatprints ; Fake sweat -- The war on sweat. A rose by any other name ; Arming the armpit ; Extreme sweat ; Sweat stains.

"A taboo-busting romp through the shame, stink, and strange science of sweating. Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it's also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts goes behind the taboo and delves into its role in the body-and in human history. She reveals the wondrous mechanics of the sweat glands and the millions of sweat pores in human skin. She explores why sweat is salty, why what you eat can affect the color of your sweat, and why we sweat when stressed (and whether it can be controlled). She takes part in a sweat dating event, traces the controversial history of antiperspirants and deodorants, considers the purported health benefits of saunas, sweat lodges, and hammams, and investigates whether "eyewitnesses" to a crime may someday be replaced by "nose-witnesses" who can pick a suspect's body odor out of a police lineup"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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