But when you’re a mouse (or, perhaps, a human) and fattening food is all around, a new study finds that those with little or no ability to detect odors may have a key advantage. While mice with an intact sense of smell grow obese on a steady diet of high-fat chow, their littermates who have had their sense of smell expunged can eat the same food yet remain trim.

If you’re thinking this is a cautionary tale about the effect of enhancing gustatory delight on portion control, you’re on the wrong track.

— Read more at Does my sense of smell make me look fat? In mice, the answer seems to be yes at the Los Angeles Times.

After a few months of training, odors began to come into focus for [Christine] Kelly. At first, they were terrible. “Everything had an unearthly, disgusting smell that would vacillate between burning Teflon frying pans [and] spoiling ham sandwiches that had been left inside a camper van in the rain for three months,” she recalls. Then, with continued training, Kelly was able to get a fix on lemon. More and more smells followed.

— Olfactory training can help people with anosmia recover their sense of smell. Read more at Regularly Whiffing Essential Oils Can Retrain Lost Sense of Smell at The Scientist. Hat tip to Janice!