Is there a critical number of people for group behavior to become lemming-like? Is imitation a common feature for both humans and great apes?
Whatever the answers from sociology or biology, fashions are a feature of life in society. To follow a fashion, to express oneself with stereotypes, made it so much easier for corporations to retail their wares and, nowadays, for social networks to recruit their hordes.
A good example is provided by the chemical linalool. To most people, its scent, floral with a touch of spiciness, is attractive enough to be used in 60% to 80% of perfumed hygiene products and cleaning agents including soaps , detergents , shampoos , and lotions.
As declared Mark Evans, “This natural linalool is incredibly useful in perfumery to add a natural, fresh, bright aspect to the top note of colognes, fougeres, aromatics, actually pretty much any perfume style. Linalool is one of those materials that is ubiquitous in perfumery, across all styles and genres. The scent is lemon green fresh, woody and a little floral. It reminds me strongly of coriander seed which is strange as this has not been extracted from coriander at all. Then I realised that coriander has a high percentage of linalool as well. So it’s actually coriander seed that smells of this linalool rather than the other way around.“
Until synthetic linalool began to replace the natural product, during the second half of the twentieth century, this particular fashion devastated the Amazonian rainforest. The natural product was extracted from the lovely-smelling rosewood tree, which grows there and has become an endangered species. Half-a-century was enough to turn a healthy into a threatened species.
Thus, both rosewoods, the tree with the celebrated lumber and the tree with the cleanliness scent, were rushed into near-extinction. What a pity, for them and for us!
In Brazil, Aniba roseadora is found to the Northwest of the habitat of Dalbergia nigra — the other rosewood —, in the states of Amapá , Amazonas , and Pará . It is also found in Colombia , Ecuador , Guyana , Peru , Suriname , Venezuela , and French Guyane.
A massive evergreen tree, a relative of the magnolia, it is impressive, with its straight cylindrical trunk reaching heights of 25-30 m (80-100 ft) and diameters of ca. 2 m (7 ft). It occupies the upper canopy, in high areas of the rainforest..
The leaves are alternate, entire, and elliptical. Small-leaved forms are found in the Guianas, while large-leaved forms are in the Amazonian rainforest. The flowers, arranged in cymes, are small. The purple fruit, 3 cm (1 in) long and 1.5 cm (0.6 in) wide is a cherry-like drupe dispersed mostly by birds, toucans in particular. The wood is typically yellowish with a greenish hue, that darkens from air oxidation. The bark is likewise yellow-brown. The whole tree is fragrant — to its detriment.
What brought about its overexploitation is the composition of the essential oil extracted from the wood. Current extraction techniques destroy the trees. The essential oil contains about 90 % linalool. Hence, it tempting to use it as a source of that chemical, in the family of alcohols which, in turn is used in a very large number of perfumes and scent-rich formulations. The rosewood essential oil is analgesic, anticonvulsant, antidepressant, antimicrobial, antiseptic, bactericidal, calm-inducing, cellular stimulant, cephalic stimulant, tissue regenerator, sleep enhancing and said to be aphrodisiac, which may explain its overuse.
Both rosewood trees, that with the handsome wood and that with the attractive smell, have become devastated. Will evolution let only ugly ducklings survive, as long as we, humans, do?