Does the left armpit smell like the right armpit? A research study explores that very question, and we explore that study, in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams discusses a published armpitty study, with dramatic readings from biologist Christina Agapakis, who has smelled more armpits, mostly for scientific reasons, than most […]
Tag: smell
Disrupting inconspicuous consumption in laundry routines (studies)
“I think the jeans can’t smell any worse. You can’t get them any dirtier then what they already are, it’s like salt; you can only dissolve a certain amount of salt in water before the water can’t take any more in. It’s the same with jeans and smells and bacteria, you can only put so […]
Identifying one’s pet(s) by how they smell
It’s (more or less) a given that dogs can reliably identify individual humans by their smell. But what about the other way around? To find out, Dr Deborah Wells and Professor Peter Hepper of the Canine Behaviour Centre, School of Psychology, at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, conducted a set of experiments. A 1m square blue […]
Smelly people in the office [podcast #78]
Smelly people in the smelly workplace — that’s the dilemma and joy of this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams — with dramatic readings by FYFD fluid dynamicist Nicole Sharp — tells about: Hugging and what it means, maybe — “Smell Organization: Bodies and Corporeal Porosity in Office Work,” Kathleen Riach […]
Leveraging City Smells (for marketing purposes)
Do you associate the city of Parma (Italy) with scent of violets, or Bufallo (US) with the aroma of Cheerios™, or the city of York (UK) with the smell of horse hair & hoof oil? According to a new paper in the journal marketing theory some people do, and this has helped to inspire marketing […]
Analyzing Why Bearcats Smell Like Popcorn
A new study adds to our knowledge of why some animals sometimes smell like buttered popcorn. The study is: “Reproductive Endocrine Patterns and Volatile Urinary Compounds of Arctictis binturong: Discovering Why Bearcats Smell Like Popcorn,” Lydia K. Greene [pictured below], Timothy W. Wallen, Anneke Moresco, Thomas E. Goodwin, Christine M. Drea, The Science of Nature, […]
Dangerous smells (boxing study)
“Sixteen healthy male participants donated their body odor while engaging in a boxing session […]” An unusual occurrence perhaps, but less so if you were organising an experiment to investigate whether the body odor of a stranger with the intention to harm serves as a chemosignal of aggression. see: ‘You Smell Dangerous: Communicating Fight Responses […]
The Smell of Jazz
Would you say that Jazz music tends to go with the smell of coffee? How about Blues with leather, or Bach with peppermint? Rather than, say, fish*? If so, you’re very much attuned with the findings of a new study published in CogSci 2015 Proceedings, entitled ‘The Smell of Jazz: Crossmodal Correspondences Between Music, Odor, […]
The disgusting (to some people) secrets of smelly (to most people) feet
The smelly feet / Limburger cheese / malaria mosquito research that earned an Ig Nobel Prize (in 2006) has provoked a deeper look at smelly foot smells. David Robson reports, for BBC Future: The disgusting secrets of smelly feet Renate Smallegange is something of a connoisseur of smelly feet – and she goes to surprising […]
Human-Milk-Smell Perfume, for the Benefit of Babies
What might be done to encourage babies to accept products which don’t naturally smell of human milk? “[…] babies prefer the odor attributes of human milk compared to those of artificial infant formula or milk products based on milk compositions of animal origin such as cow’s milk etc.” The Fraunhofer Society (owner, amongst much more, […]