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Perfume or cologne can make it harder to tell friend from foe — at least if you happen to be an ant. Researchers at the University of Melbourne found that a strong background odour, in the form of Tabu spray cologne, can hinder ants in identifying each other.
— Of course, sometimes Tabu confuses humans too. Read more at Ant communication confused by perfume at ABC Science.
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A fragrant perfume has brought many a man and many a woman together. Orchid bees, too, appear to rely on scent when it comes to choosing a partner. In the course of their lives, the males compile a species-specific bouquet that they store in the pockets on their hind legs. One day, they release it. In order to attract the female, assumes Tamara Pokorny, biologist at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). She studies the flying perfume aficionados' collecting behaviour.
— Read more at How orchid bees find their personal scent, attract mates at Science Daily.
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A collective of concerned La Jolla business owners calling itself Citizens for Odor Nuisance Abatement recently sued the city of San Diego in hopes that authorities will take action and do something about the source of the offending odor: a cluster of rocks in La Jolla Cove that are used by sea lions, cormorants, and other forms of marine life as a communal latrine.
— I can personally verify that it stinks! Read more at Sea Lion Poop Gets San Diego Sued.
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She is a woman obsessed with smell. As head of a sensory ecology lab, she's spent the past two decades picking apart how seabirds' ability to detect scents is key to their survival. Nevitt had the good fortune to arrive in the field on the heels of a handful of pioneering bird olfaction studies. Yet changing long-held beliefs takes time, and the scientific community is no exception. Dozens of Nevitt's grant proposals have been rejected because of the birds-can't-smell fallacy. A program officer once called to say her application was the worst he'd ever seen. "Your idea that birds can smell is ridiculous,"he said. "This will never be funded, so stop wasting your time."
— Read more at Birds Can Smell, and One Scientist is Leading the Charge to Prove It, an article at Audubon magazine about Gabrielle Nevitt of the University of California-Davis.
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The research all started with smelly feet.
A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, placed odor-collecting beads in their own socks to pick up a scent and placed them in an experimental wind tunnel with hungry mosquitoes, where the beads acted as a stand-in for a human.
— Read more at Mosquito Scent-Tracking Discovery Could Lead to Better Repellents at Scientific American.