There's a bawdy tale told of a fungus that grows wild in Hawaii which is rumored to induce orgasms in women who sniff it, but like many of these wild tales the truth has never been truly confirmed.
The claim was made by John C. Holliday in his paper "Spontaneous female orgasms triggered by the smell of a newly found tropical Dictyophora Desv. species", research John says began when local women spoke of sniffing a mushroom that "made them feel funny".
But science writer and Postdoctoral scholar Dr. Christie Wilcox wasn't convinced by John's claims, so she set out to discover the truth for herself, a journey that became Expedition Ecstasy: Sniffing Out The Truth About Hawai'i's Orgasm-Inducing Mushroom.
It's an interesting look at what it takes to turn local lore into hard science, and Christie's story proves once again that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is...and it most likely smells like crap.
-Via Boing Boing