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Most humans perceive a given odor similarly. But the genes for the molecular machinery that humans use to detect scents are about 30 percent different in any two people, says neuroscientist Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. This variation means that nearly every person’s sense of smell is subtly different.
— Read more at Sense of smell is strictly personal, study suggests at ScienceNews.
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Odors arrive in small packets—tiny bouquets of molecules—that are inhaled. Receptor cells inside the nose respond by producing a series of electrical spikes, which are communicated to the olfactory bulb in the brain, where the smell is decoded.
“It’s like Morse code,” said Upinder Bhalla, a professor of neurobiology at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, and lead supervisor of a recent study about the olfactory system that is the first to document the coding is linear. “The pattern and spacing of the clicks make different letters.”
— Read more at Scents of Smell Rooted in Math at The Wall Street Journal.
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Study participants who were shown images of heavy and thin individuals while sniffing odorless substances rated the “scent samples” as smelling worse when they were paired with images of heavy people. [...] And that effect was most pronounced among study participants who were themselves heavy.
— Read more at Study measures the foul smell of fat bias at UK Reuters.
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A new study published in the journal Frontiers Psychology suggests that the calming scent of lavender—as opposed to more stimulating smells like peppermint—is capable of fostering interpersonal trust. Scientists have long known that certain aromatic compounds can have an effect on a person’s cognitive or psychological well-being, but this is the first time they’ve found a direct link between a particular smell and the phenomenon of trust.
— Read more at Want to Gain Others’ Trust? Wear the Scent of Lavender at NOVA.
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The same year, Grace Pavlath, a biologist at Emory University, published a study on olfactory receptors in skeletal muscles. She found that bathing the receptors in Lyral, a synthetic fragrance redolent of lily of the valley, promoted the regeneration of muscle tissue. Blocking these receptors (by neutralizing the genes that code for them), on the other hand, was found to inhibit muscular regeneration, suggesting that odor receptors are a necessary component of the intricate biochemical signaling system that causes stem cells to morph into muscles cells and replace damaged tissue.
— Read more at Smell Turns Up in Unexpected Places at the New York Times. Hat tip to Aparatchik!