[HN Gopher] Petrichor
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Petrichor
Author : tosh
Score : 142 points
Date : 2022-12-27 10:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I learn a lot of new words from Hello Meteor
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q5mgYEwjk
| cryptoquick wrote:
| Funny timing that this particular topic made it to HN. From the
| recently-released Season 4 of The Dragon Prince, this is one of
| the reasons Claudia is so infatuated with Terry, an Earthblood
| elf.
| adityaladwa wrote:
| Good to learn this today.
| gen_greyface wrote:
| not just after rain. i've noticed it early in the morning because
| of dew, albeit milder.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| fallingfrog wrote:
| I went on a road trip once with a person who was born and raised
| in a large city, and we drove out into the country just after a
| rainstorm. It was summer and we could smell the rain on green
| leaves and soil smell. She said, "what is that wonderful smell in
| the air? I've never smelled anything like this." It was a really
| cool experience to be there and sort of experience it for the
| first time vicariously.
| europeanguy wrote:
| I've first encountered this word in a Calvin and Hobbes strip.
| glanzwulf wrote:
| Interesting, I first found the word in a Doctor Who episode. It
| was the favorite smell of one of the main characters of that
| season.
|
| I wonder how many other different pieces of media have
| introduced others to the word
| mbork_pl wrote:
| Not really a favorite smell, it was part of a passcode.
| [deleted]
| LelouBil wrote:
| So that's why the planet in Risk of Rain is called Petrichor V !
| djcannabiz wrote:
| i was just gonna say!! and with the remaster of the first game
| also
| psithurism wrote:
| To go along with this: Psithurism
|
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/psithurism
| pcrh wrote:
| While petrichor is pleasant after a rain, according to the wiki
| article on geosmin it appears to also indicate poor water quality
| [0].
|
| So perhaps the evolved sensitivity is to avoid stagnant water,
| rather than to seek recent rainfall. After all, for prehistoric
| hominids local recent rainfall is pretty obvious, and traveling
| large distances to distant rainfall is not usually practical.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosmin
| addaon wrote:
| Living in the semi-arid American Southwest (about 15" of rain a
| year), the occasional brief-but-heavy rainfalls during late
| summer can give an overwhelming scent of petrichor. If walking or
| hiking outside, it's inescapable, since it literally comes from
| every patch of ground; and while pleasant enough in small doses,
| it can get strong enough that it feels hard to breathe, like
| walking through a desperate Macy's.
| dstarh wrote:
| > like walking through a desperate Macy's.
|
| Such an fitting description
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Petrichor: why does rain smell so good?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20429952 - July 2019 (34
| comments)
|
| _Slow-motion video of raindrops reveals how rain gets its
| distinctive smell_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8912933
| - Jan 2015 (20 comments)
|
| _What Makes Rain Smell So Good?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5583575 - April 2013 (23
| comments)
|
| _The official term for the smell after it rains_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006923 - Dec 2009 (36
| comments)
| jwarden wrote:
| I smell Petrichor when my whole-house humidifier starts running
| after having been off for a long time.
| meindnoch wrote:
| You can buy pure geosmin:
| https://pellwall.com/products/geosmin-10
| Encrust6221 wrote:
| Can they put it in a candle?
| rippercushions wrote:
| As all Australian know, one of the nicest scents on earth is gum
| trees (eucalyptus) after rain.
| wakeless wrote:
| Don't forget the Paul Kelly song of the same name.
| brolumir wrote:
| And a great Phish song by that name too
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbMTa1yeSyw
| abdusco wrote:
| Also Ludovico Einaudi, where I first encountered the word
| "petrichor". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xeStLTnhM
| pythko wrote:
| And the 1975!
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0E_uK01odHg
|
| Based on the context of the title, I had just assumed petrichor
| was the name of an artist or something. Glad to know the real
| definition!
| scns wrote:
| There actually is one, quite liked his debut when it came
| out.
|
| https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/3536488-Petrichor
| warning26 wrote:
| I always hated this word -- it was made up in the 1960s, and it
| sounds to me like it is describing something disgusting that
| you'd scrape off the ground.
|
| The pleasant smell of rain deserves a better word than
| "petrichor".
| function_seven wrote:
| Heh. To me is sounds like some Victorian-era disease that
| requires a suitable balancing of humors and maybe a touch of
| bloodletting to cure.
| warning26 wrote:
| Hah! I like your interpretation as well. "I'm sorry sir, it
| appears you are suffering from a case of petrichor. A bracing
| draught of brandy ought to put this right!"
| layer8 wrote:
| Petrifying to the core.
|
| Or a music genre. "I'm mainly listening to petrichor these
| days."
|
| A fancy name for liquor on the rocks.
| w1ntermute wrote:
| _""A little-known piece of trivia," Altman announced. "This
| smell, after it rains for the first time. You know what's that
| called?"
|
| "Is this going to freak me out?" Williams said.
|
| "Petrichor," Altman said. "It's my favorite smell. You only get
| to smell this once or twice a year, because it has to not rain
| for a while, and then rain. It's the smell of summers in St.
| Louis."
|
| "Petrichor?" Williams said, uncertainly.
|
| "Petrichor," Altman said."_
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/magazine/y-combinator-sil...
| krsrhe wrote:
| He totally stole that from Neil Gaiman's episode of Doctor Who
| (who certainly stole it from elsewhere)
|
| https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doctor%27s_Wife_(TV_story...
| scubbo wrote:
| Haha, don't be silly, I remember watching that episode, it
| only came out a few years ago...
|
| ...wait...
| pxue wrote:
| wonder if there is a cologne / perfume version of this smell
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| But of course! https://demeterfragrance.com/petrichor.html
| sethammons wrote:
| It appears humans are more sensitive to fresh rain on dry soil
| than sharks are to blood in the water. Fun to think of the
| evolutionary pressures there.
|
| From the wiki, humans detect at 0.4 ppb and it appears sharks are
| at about 1 ppm. I can't find a proper source, but several
| articles say about a teaspoon of blood to an olympic swimming
| pool. https://www.sharktrust.org/shark-senses
| Scalene2 wrote:
| Maybe we like the smell and are sensitive to it due to its
| association with arable land?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _Fun to think of the evolutionary pressures there._
|
| Savannah hominids obviously needed to run to the parking and
| put up the tops on their convertibles as soon as they scented
| rain?
|
| By etymology, I'd consider magma to be a good referent for
| petrichor. Or at least the salty deposits left along contact
| surfaces of strike-slip faults?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Hominids traveling deserts may need to quickly climb when
| rain starts falling. If you're not prepared, you can get
| swept away and even drown by flash floods in the dryest
| places on earth.
|
| The "more people drown in deserts than die of thirst" factoid
| is not entirely made up; flash floods are incredibly deadly,
| especially so in areas where it doesn't rain much. Modern
| humans are quite good at surviving such events but I can
| definitely see (early) mammals struggle to survive them.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's a neologism.
|
| I imagine the evolutionary benefit of the sensitivity is in
| avoiding drinking stagnant water, where the compound is also
| present: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosmin
| addaon wrote:
| Real question:
|
| Are individual scent receptors evolutionary preserved, or is
| there enough "cross-encoding" either at the genetic level or
| the receptor level itself that preservation of a small number
| of survival-correlated scent receptors will, coincidentally,
| cause preservation of other receptors as well?
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Adam Ragusea has 8 minute video on the topic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8vHsY_QVHM
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(page generated 2022-12-28 23:01 UTC)