The logic and scope of this new study perhaps offer lessons for researchers in every field: “Disgust and the Politics of Sex: Exposure to a Disgusting Odorant Increases Politically Conservative Views on Sex and Decreases Support for Gay Marriage,” Thomas G. Adams, Patrick A. Stewart [pictured here], John C. Blanchar, PLoS ONE, 9(5), May 5, 2014, e95572. […]
Tag: odor
The tomatoic under-arm odour of J.C.M. Stewart
J.C.M. Stewart conveys an unusual kind of information in this medical paper: “Tomatoes cause under-arm odour,” J.C.M. Stewart, Medical Hypotheses, vol. 82 (2014) pp. 518–521. (Thanks to Jean-François Sauvé for bringing this to our attention.) The author, in Downpatrick, Co Down, Northern Ireland, explains: “I was more than usually aware of my AO [armpit odor] […]
A kind of thing that humans can learn during sleep
The industry devoted to “sleep learning” aside, it’s been unclear that people can learn much of anything while they are asleep. An experiment (by much the same team that later noted the phenomenon of contagious sniffing), says it has identified one kind of thing that people can indeed learn while they are asleep: “Humans can […]
VR – Mysteries of the scent projector (part 2)
We recently profiled the work of the Yanagida Laboratory of Meijo university, Nagoya, Japan, where work is underway on a vortex ring scent projector to deliver accurately timed odours to participants in a virtual reality (VR) environment. But the projector (one of which is picture at right) had a drawback : “One of the problems is […]
VR – Mysteries of the scent projector (part 1)
For those in the VR (Virtual Reality) world, there’s an old problem, how can scents be reliably delivered to individuals in an audience at the right place and the right time? Although many attempts have been made – with varying degrees of success – it took until 2003 for the vortex ring scent canon to […]
“Zebrafish… also find these scents disgusting”
Danielle Venton writes in the PNAS First Look Blog: Geneticists and cell biologists from the University of Cologne in Germany and Harvard University have found that zebrafish, a vertebrate model animal, also find these scents disgusting. The phrase “these scents” refers to the personal odors of the socially-isolating chemical cadaverine [the structure of which is pictured here] […]
Technical note: Evaluation of odor from…
Today’s Technical Note of the Day is: “Technical note: Evaluation of odor from vaginal discharge of cows in the first 10 days after calving by olfactory cognition and an electronic device,” I. Sannmann, O. Burfeind, V. Suthar, A. Bos, M. Bruins, W. Heuwieser , Journal of Dairy Science, epub June 28, 2013. The authors are […]
Profiling the Nasal Ranger ® (for field sniffers)
Imagine that you are employed as a professional field sniffer. That is, a person who has the job of attempting to identify and quantify odours, quite literally in the field. Think: agricultural, industrial and natural. But there is an inherent problem – however keen your olfactory expertise, when you’re immersed in problematic stinky air, where […]
The Further Adventures of The Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand
Lively, if not entirely cheerful, debate can be provoked by mentioning this study done by a researcher at the Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand: “Effect of Stress-Related Changes in Sheepmeat Ultimate pH on Cooked Odor and Flavor,” T.J. Braggins, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1996, 44 (8), pp 2352–2360: “In this study […]
To sleep, perchance to smell, perchance to create, maybe
One might, maybe inaccurately, sum up this new study by saying, “Put this in your pipe and sleep on it”. The study is: “Good morning creativity: task reactivation during sleep enhances beneficial effect of sleep on creative performance,” Simone Ritter, Madelijn Strick, Maarten Bos, Rick Van Baaren, Ap Dijksterhuis [pictured here], Journal of Sleep Research, epub […]