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 […]
Tag: stink
A logical calculus of vomit stink, gay marriage, and political leaning
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. […]
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 […]
Ripped from Old Headlines: Stink
Today’s Ripped-from-the-Headlines Gem-of-the-Past is from 1977: “Stink of Stinkpot Turtle Identified: ω-Phenylalkanoic Acids,” Thomas Eisner [pictured below], et al, Science 1 96 , 1977, pp. 1347-1349.
Finger Ratios Don’t Always Predict Body Odor
Discoveries continue to pour in about the significance of people’s finger lengths. Recently we wrote about studies concerning finger ratios and number of sex partners, finger ratios and the prediction of who will become a good doctor, finger ratios and the success of financial traders, and many other wonderous things. A new Swiss/French/British study reveals […]
Study: Smelly socks for malaria control
Cesar Sanchez of the TwistedBacteria blog alerts us to this new study, which was derived from the Ig Nobel Prize-winning work of Bart Knols and Ruurd de Jong (who showed that many malaria mosquitoes are attracted equally to the smell of human feet and the smell of limburger cheese): “Sugar-fermenting yeast as an organic source […]
Argument for a stinky bicycle helmet
Research News reports on a technical innovation (thanks to investigator Jan Stradowski for bringing this to our attention): Crash helmet with a useful smell The polymer materials or plastics produced by the process start to smell if they develop small cracks. Large cracks really cause a stink. The smell comes from odoriferous oils enclosed in […]
Ramp, King of Stink – endangered?
As this US Library of Congress document points out “The ramp’s flavor, though sweet with a hint of garlic, is accompanied by a potent odor so objectionable [that] school children with ‘ramp odor’ were known to have been excused from school for a few days.” For those outside the Appalachian area, who may be unfamiliar […]