Weird Science Getting Up in Your Business

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Coming through our inbox, we thought the press release we got announcing the link between hormones and a woman's preference for fabrics like silk and pima versus leather and fur was wacky enough (it's estrogen versus testosterone, which makes us think that an abundance of faux fur might be a good PMS indicator). And then we got deeper into it and learned there's something called the Hormonal Quotient, a scientific construct based on factors like gender, age, ethnicity, even the relative length of the index and ring fingers of the right hand. (God only knows how they'd get the finger information from a woman; it's slightly more obvious why a guy would know the digit digits?ahem, PENIS PREDICTOR.) The scary thing is that once marketers have this information, it, "?makes it possible to predict not only their favorite textures, but also their preferred flavors, smells, shapes, and sounds." And this weird proprietary process is used by huge corps. like Philips, Sofitel, Sephora, and Sara Lee to make and market their products. [Racked Inbox, US News and World Report]