To wine and dine Sasha, a 450-pound Siberian tiger at the Bronx Zoo, try serving beef and rabbit. To lure him for a snack, whip out the frozen treats his zookeepers call "bloodcicles." But to really get his olfactory engines running, you need the secret weapon: Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men.
— From Big Cats Obsess Over Calvin Klein's 'Obsession for Men' at the Wall Street Journal.
The idea of having a signature scent attracts me. I love thinking that when someone catches a whisper of Guerlain Vol de Nuit he thinks of me, or that my friends associate me with the warm, entrancing aroma left on my coat or suffusing my bedroom. But hey, that’s not going to happen. I haven’t counted lately, but my number of “signature” scents is probably pushing 100.
Now, though, I have a new justification. When I see someone’s eyes start to pop at the sight of my perfume cabinet, I have the perfect reply. “Of course I have lots of perfume,” I’ll say. “Why? For ‘enrichment’, of course.”
To explain, let me take a step back. I have a friend, Ann Littlewood, who used to be a zookeeper. Now she writes terrific mystery novels that take place in the fictional Finley Memorial Zoo. When she heard I like perfume, she mentioned she used to spray fragrance in the tigers’ dens at the zoo. I asked her what perfume she sprayed, and why, and she sent me an answer by email…
Two new studies offer hope in the fight against malaria, a disease that kills a million people a year. Malaria and other diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes, and the insects can use smell to track humans, even when they're hundreds of meters away. Researchers are working to figure out how mosquitoes pick up smells, and then use this information to stop the pesky insects.
— Read (or listen to) the rest of the story at To Stop A Mosquito, Scientists Follow The Nose at NPR.
The scent of a single chemical can turn peaceful, happy fruit flies into flying fists of fury.
For the first time, scientists have found a rage-inducing pheromone and the neuron that detects it in fruit flies.
— From Pheromone turns fruit flies violent at MSNBC.
Chemical identifiers secreted from the genital glands of lemurs, allow them to avoid incest and also to engage in nepotism. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have identified the smells used by both male and female ring-tailed lemurs to advertize their family ties.
— From Scent signals stop incest in lemurs at Physorg.