Latest Olfaction Stories

Almost a century after telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell first popularized the idea of measuring smells, chemical vapor sensors ― "electronic noses" ― are being developed for use in diagnosing disease, detecting national security threats, and other futuristic uses. A new episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning Bytesize Science series takes viewers on a behind-the-science tour of a major lab that is developing affordable, easy-to-carry chemical vapor...

Newly developed analytic device 'Flywalk' allows accurate studies of insect behavior to be made In collaboration with colleagues from Portugal and Spain, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have developed an apparatus that automatically applies odors to an airstream, while filming and analyzing the behavior of insects simultaneously. The system is called Flywalk and consists of glass tubes, airstream regulators, and a video camera. The reactions...

MONTPELIER, Vt., March 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Even the panel of "odor specialists" resisted the urge to cover their noses as pungent smells emanated from the smelliest sneakers in this year's Annual National Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest. Ready to be judged, seven kids, ages seven to sixteen, from across the country arrived in Montpelier today, selected as national finalists, wearing the decrepit and odorous rubber-soles that won them regional recognition. To view the...

Study identifies mechanism to explain how the body responds to potentially threatening negative odors Anxious people have a heightened sense of smell when it comes to sniffing out a threat, according to a new study by Elizabeth Krusemark and Wen Li from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US. Their work¹ is published online in Springer's journal Chemosensory Perception. The study is part of a special issue² of this journal on neuroimaging the chemical senses. In animals, the...

People born without a sense of smell experience higher social insecurity and increased risk for depression, according to a study published Mar. 21 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The authors of the study, led by Ilona Croy of the University of Dresden Medical School in Germany, investigated 32 individuals born without a sense of smell, known as isolated congenital anosmia. They found that the non-smellers did not have significant deviations from the norm in terms of many daily...

Researchers from the Stowers institute for Medical Research have traced individual odor molecules in the brain to create a new model of how our sense of smell works. While once thought to cluster related smells, researchers have know discovered that the brain reacts to smells in a broader sense. Previous research has shown that the brain handles the senses in a very orderly way. Things that we touch were thought to be mapped together in the somatosensory cortex, things that we heard...

How are 100 billion cells created, each with specific duties? The human brain is evidence that nature can achieve this. Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have now taken a step closer to solving this mystery. "Knowledge about the mechanisms that diversify neurons and keep them diverse is necessary in order to cultivate and replace nerve cells in the future," says Mattias Alenius, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, who has published his research breakthrough in the current...

How are 100 billion cells created, each with specific duties? The human brain is evidence that nature can achieve this. Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have now taken a step closer to solving this mystery. "Knowledge about the mechanisms that diversify neurons and keep them diverse is necessary in order to cultivate and replace nerve cells in the future," says Mattias Alenius, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, who has published his research breakthrough in the current...

Study sheds light on how plants sniff out unhealthy neighbors to fight off infection People and animals are not the only ones who can smell. Plants are also able to perceive odors, but they process them in a very different way . While insects or mammals smell odors within a second of exposure, plants require much longer exposure times to respond. Then using this information, they react effectively to the odors emitted by infected or infested neighboring plants in order to increase their...

Activating the visual cortex improves our sense of smell A new study reveals for the first time that activating the brain's visual cortex with a small amount of electrical stimulation actually improves our sense of smell. The finding published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital - The Neuro, McGill University and the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, revises our understanding of the complex biology of the senses in...