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A survey of 3,000 adults found 39% with the poorest sense of smell were dead within five years - compared to just 10% who identified odours correctly.
Scientists say the loss of smell sense does not cause death directly, but may be an early warning sign.
— Read more at Sense of smell 'may predict lifespan' at BBC. Hat tip to Mahgwet!
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Compared with 13 other mammal species studied, African elephants have the most genes related to smell: 2,000. That’s the most ever discovered in an animal—more than twice the number of olfactory genes in domestic dogs and five times more than in humans, who have about 400, according to research published July 22 in the journal Genome Research. The previous record-holder was rats, which have about 1,200 genes dedicated to smell.
— Read more at Elephants Have 2,000 Genes for Smell—Most Ever Found at National Geographic.
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New research from the Monell Chemical Senses Center reveals that women's faces are rated as more attractive in the presence of pleasant odors. [...] The findings suggest that the use of scented products such as perfumes may, to some extent, alter how people perceive one another.
"Odor pleasantness and facial attractiveness integrate into one joint emotional evaluation," said lead author Janina Seubert, PhD, a cognitive neuroscientist who was a postdoctoral fellow at Monell at the time the research was conducted. "This may indicate a common site of neural processing in the brain."
— See the press release at Pleasant smells increase facial attractiveness.
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Japan, she says, has one of the most advanced attitudes towards the olfactory sense and its relationship to place, going as far as declaring “One Hundred Sites of Good Fragrance” across the country. From the sea mist of Kushiro to the Nanbu rice cracker of Morioka, not to mention the distinct smell of glue that hangs in the air around the doll craftsmen’s homes in Koriyama, all now have protected status.
— Victoria Henshaw, "town planner turned odour advocate at the University of Sheffield"; read more at The woman kicking up a stink about urban life: 'Cities are losing their smell' at The Guardian.
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NPR's Richard Harris talks about new research finding that the human nose can (theoretically) distinguish more than a trillion different smells. The segment is a little less than 4 minutes long.
If you'd rather read than listen, check out Take a whiff! You can smell 1 trillion scents, study finds at the LA Times. Hat tip to Joe!