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However, even after knocking out an entire family of odor-sensing receptors from the mosquito genome, mosquitoes still find a way to bite us. Now, a group of researchers, publishing in the journal Cell on August 18, found that mosquitoes have evolved redundant fail-safes in their olfactory system that make sure they can always smell our scents.
— Read more in Mosquitoes have neuronal fail-safes to make sure they can always smell humans at Science Daily.
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When worms were limited in the amount of food they could eat, the FMO protein, which was highlighted using a fluorescent marker, lit up “like a Christmas tree…it was bright red,” noted Leiser. However, when the worms were exposed to food smells, there was considerably less activation of FMO, leading to a loss of life extension.
— Read more in Serotonin and Dopamine Modulate Aging in Response to Food Odor and Availability at Neuroscience News.
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Currently there are few treatment options [for anosmia] available. A technique called olfactory training can help in some cases, and a number of approaches to repairing damaged olfactory tissues are being explored. However, a small but growing group of scientists is pursuing another avenue: olfactory implants that restore smell by bypassing the peripheral olfactory system and electrically stimulating the brain.
— Read more in Restoring smell with an electronic nose at Nature.
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[University of Sydney ecologist Catherine] Price and her team ground-tested her theory, literally, by putting a chicken scent in Vaseline and spreading it across thousand-hectare sites where endangered shorebirds nested. Because the scent showed up before the birds, and because it was everywhere and so not a useful clue toward finding dinner, ferrets and stoats left the shorebird nests alone. Nest predation decreased more than 50 percent, an effect that lasted a month.
— Read more in What the nose doesn't know helps wildlife: Using olfactory cues to protect vulnerable species at ScienceDaily.
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Nocturnal tobacco hawkmoths (Manduca sexta) use their keen sense of smell to find nectar rich flowers or plants on which to lay their eggs. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology are looking to answer the question of how the moths distinguish between different smells.
With so many smells in the world, how can moths pick out those that are essential for their lives from those unnecessary whiffs?
— Read more in Tobacco hawkmoths are incredibly sensitive to important smells at Earth.com.