Now Dr. Vosshall, with her colleagues Mathias Ditzen and Maurizio Pellegrino, has uncovered DEET’s secret. It does indeed have something to do with smell: it jams odorant receptors in insect nervous systems, in effect masking odors that would ordinarily attract the bugs.

— Scientists have figured out how DEET, a commonly-used insect repellent, really works. Read more in The Secret of DEET? It Masks Odors That Usually Attract Bugs in the New York Times. Thanks to Sondra for the link!

I like shoes, but shoes are boring.

— March of Perfume Posse explains why perfume is better than shoes, in Scents and Sensitivity in this week's Time magazine.

Sometimes birds would fly straight to food, but almost half the time an albatross would either turn upwind or zigzag into the wind toward a meal. Both patterns suggest that the birds were following a plume of scent, rather than visual cues…

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Animal researchers say California ground squirrels and rock squirrels mask their scent by chewing up rattlesnake skin and smearing it on their fur.

— From Squirrels use snake scent for safety at earthtime.org.

University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Hector Douglas has found that, for crested auklets, chemistry has both amorous and practical applications. The birds rub a citrus-like scent, secreted in wick-like feathers on their backs, on each other during courtship, a behavior called alloanointing.

— And the aldehydes in the scent apparently help ward off ticks. Read the rest in Science Daily.