Yet for the average Londoner, our olfactory life goes unnoticed. This is more than coincidence — last year bioanthropologist Dr Kara Hoover warned that harsh city smells of rubbish and pollution are affecting our ability to detect nuances in scent that occur in nature. The term for this modern disconnect is ‘cultural anosmia’ and it can be more detrimental than we realise.

— Read more at Urban life is damaging our sense of smell — but reconnecting with the aromas around us has untold benefits at Evening Standard. You can find Kara Hoover's website, The Smell of Evolution, here.

Specifically, researchers split 114 students into two groups to answer maths questions from the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). One group was exposed to a coffee smell during the test, and ended up with "significantly higher" scores. What's more, based on questions asked during the test, just smelling the beverage seemed to boost students' expectations for how well they would do.

— Read more at Even Just The Smell of Coffee Could Actually Perk Up Your Brain, Study Shows at Science Alert.

Researchers have found that an olfactory receptor plays a critical role in the progression of prostate cancer. They found that activating the receptor -- called OR51E2 -- in prostate cancer cells caused the cancer to morph into the more aggressive, castration-resistant form of the disease. The finding suggests that taking the opposite approach -- blocking the receptor with specific molecules, or perhaps even with specific scents -- could provide a new way to treat prostate cancer.

— Read more at Smell receptor fuels prostate cancer progression at Science Daily.

Malaria infection does not create new volatile chemicals in the body, but alters the amounts—up or down—of volatile chemicals that are already present in the odors of healthy people.

"It is interesting that the symptomatic and asymptomatic infections were different from each other as well as from healthy people," said Mark C. Mescher, adjunct professor of biology, Penn State, and professor of environmental systems science, ETH Zurich.

This difference among infected, infected asymptomatic, and healthy individuals may eventually lead to tests capable of rapidly and accurately identifying infected people, even those without symptoms.

— Read more at Altered body odor indicates malaria even if microscope doesn't at Medical Xpress.

[Victor] Batista and his colleagues are proponents of a theory that smell is initiated by specific molecular interactions between odorants and G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the olfactory epithelium in the nasal cavity, triggering memories and eliciting responses based on experiences with that scent. Previous research by the group identified two olfactory receptors in humans, OR5AN1 and OR1A1, that respond to musk compounds.

[...] The researchers developed structural models of OR5AN1 and OR1A1 based on quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics hybrid methods, a molecular simulation method that enables the study of chemical processes in solution and in proteins. These structural models predicted binding sites on OR5AN1 and OR1A1 for a variety of musks.

— Read more at Advancing the science of smell — with a hint of musk at Yale News. If you need a refresher course, see Shape theory of olfaction at Wikipedia.