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Jane Kangas has the most valuable nostrils in North Dakota.
The environmental scientist’s state-certified nose gives her the ability to decipher whether a landfill is meeting standards for odor control — needing just a whiff or two to determine whether it has reached peak reek. Her verification: a device that records the level of odor.
— Read more at Scientist sniffs out landfill issues at The Chippewa Herald.
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Summertime, and the city is stinky. Trash bags ooze, urine coats subway platforms, and the scent of frying kebabs curls among the skyscrapers. The warm-weather assault on New Yorkers’ noses has taken place every year since New Amsterdam days, but its specific qualities keep changing. These days, the funky tang of marijuana has become as ubiquitous as cigarette smoke once was — surely a sign that city life is improving.
— Read more at The History of That New York Street Smell, From Manure to Marijuana at New York Magazine.
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By isolating these specific odors, scientists have give us the ability to better articulate the specific ways in which other people are disgusting to us (“Frank smells like rotting fruit because of his butryic acid problem”), but no clear way to solve the problem. The issue remains that odors are intensely complicated. The arise from the compounds, sure but also from the way compounds and bacteria react to heat and sweat and the presence of substances secreted by human glands. Body odor is a cocktail and the ability to name some of the ingredients does not a recipe, make less a chaser, make.
— Scientists at Northumbria University are studying the molecules that make our clothes smell, and how well those molecules survive washing at different temperatures. Read more at Scientists Isolate Body Odor's Specific Smells One Volatile Compound at a Time at Inverse.
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The study highlighted the second Hunger Games movie, during which CO2 and isoprene levels gradually rose through the movie, as expected as people sat in the theater for longer, but also peaked during tense moments-Katniss’ dress catching fire, the final battle beginning. Jumps in CO2 probably correspond with excited exhalations, while isoprene jumps could be caused by holding one’s breath or fidgeting muscles.
— Read more at Why People Can Literally Smell Your Fear in Movie Theaters at Esquire, or read the original study Cinema audiences reproducibly vary the chemical composition of air during films, by broadcasting scene specific emissions on breath at Nature.
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[Lucian] Osuji and co-sniffers Andy Weyer and Chris Rydell can detect an “off” odor in the 10 minutes it takes to heat a water sample to the temperature of a hot home shower. That temperature is ideal for detecting odors as the trio evaluate samples for an assortment of odors on their score sheets: musty, metallic, stale, yeast, weak tea, rotten egg.
— The chemists at the Minneapolis Water Works smell the water once or twice a day, and adjust the water treatment system accordingly. Read more at Smell that? Careful noses improve scent and taste of Mpls. water at the StarTribune.