Latest Olfaction Stories

Pure Environmental Solutions, a Virginia-based company with operations throughout the United States, offers a suite of environmentally-friendly services to help businesses and consumers deal with unpleasant – and often dangerous – conditions, and is happy to announce the latest of its service offerings. (PRWEB) September 23, 2011 In the hit movie “Contagion,” a viral pandemic starts in an airport bar and spreads throughout the globe, threatening the world...

  Research may bring help to endangered species Birds may have a more highly developed sense of smell than researchers previously thought, contend scholars who have found that penguins may use smell to determine if they are related to a potential mate. The research by the University of Chicago and the Chicago Zoological Society, which manages Brookfield Zoo, shows how related birds are able to recognize each other. The study, published Wednesday, Sept. 21 in the article, "Odor-based...

  Researchers from Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia are reporting that people with unexplained body odor issues may be suffering from a metabolic disorder, trimethylaminuria (TMAU) or “fish-odor syndrome”. TMAU is a genetically-transmitted disease that inhibits the ability of an enzyme to metabolize or transform trimethylamine (TMA) and is not based on lack of hygiene or personal care. Instead, the condition becomes apparent when sufferers digest foods rich in a...

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) found in a new study that an area of your brain is hard-wired to respond to animals, whether they are cute and fluffy or ugly and threatening. No matter what your response is to animals, it could be thanks to that specific area of the brain that is hard-wired to rapidly detect other creatures. Working with researchers from UCLA, Caltech researchers report that neurons throughout the amygdala -- a center in the brain known...

When it comes to the circuits that make up the olfactory system, it seems that less is more. Much like the addition and elimination of extra synapses that helps fine-tune brain circuitry, the olfactory system continues to produce and remove neurons throughout life. Yet it is not entirely clear how and why some newborn neurons are preserved while others are eliminated. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the September 8 issue of the journal Neuron reveals that both olfactory...

Scientists from the Monell Center report that approximately one third of patients with unexplained body malodor production test positive for the metabolic disorder trimethylaminuria (TMAU). A definitive diagnosis offers relief to these individuals, as symptoms of TMAU can hinder social and workplace interactions and cause psychological distress. But once the disease is identified, these debilitating symptoms can be ameliorated using changes in diet and other approaches. "Health care...

The latest Perspectives in General Physiology series examines the mechanisms of visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile processes that inform us about the environment. The series appears in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of General Physiology (www.jgp.org). Everything that mammals perceive about the environment is based on the transmission to the brain of signals originating in sensory organs such as the eye, ear, nose, and skin. As described by UCLA researchers Robert Farley and...

New research claims that dogs are able to reliably detect early lung cancer by sniffing samples of patients' breath. The researchers found that trained animals correctly identified 71 percent of people who had the disease and correctly dismissed 93 percent of those who were healthy. According to the study, the dogs were able to distinguish between people who had tumors and those who had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is a separate condition also linked to smoking. Scientists at...

When are our adult food preferences formed? According to new research they are ingrained in us very early in the womb. New research by the Monell Chemical Senses Center finds that mothers can influence a baby's palate and food memories before it is born by introducing foods to her unborn child. In the womb, the baby is surrounded and nourished on the amniotic fluid, which is filled with the flavors of what the mom has eaten."Things like vanilla, carrot, garlic, anise, mint -- these are some...

Penn researchers have helped develop a nanotech device that combines carbon nanotubes with olfactory receptor proteins, the cell components in the nose that detect odors.Because olfactory receptors belong to a larger class of proteins that are involved in passing signals through the cell membrane, these devices could have applications beyond odor sensing, such as pharmaceutical research.  The research was led by professor A. T. Charlie Johnson, postdoctoral fellow Brett R. Goldsmith and...