But the raters predicted the donor's level of extroversion and neuroticism through smell about as accurately as participants in a different study predicted personality traits based on a video depicting a person's behavior, Sorokowska said. Judgments of dominance were most accurate in the case where an individual rater was assessing the odor of someone who was the opposite sex, suggesting such judgments are especially important when it comes to choosing a mate, the researchers said.

— Another "smell this sweaty t-shirt" study. Read more at Some Personality Traits Affect How You Smell at Live Science. Hat tip to Erin!

Millions of receptors in the nose's smelling organ aren't scattered at random, a new study says. Instead, the receptors congregate in tiny hot spots that help the brain discern good smells from bad ones, among other potential functions.

— Read more at Secrets of Smell: Different Nose Parts for Stinky, Sweet at National Geographic.

Jess Porter and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have also been trying to train people's noses. They persuaded 32 students to wear blindfolds and ear defenders, and get down on all fours to see whether they could sniff out a trail of chocolate oil. Intrigued, I wanted to try it for myself, which is how I ended up on all fours in a London park.

— From The unsung sense: How smell rules your life in the New Scientist. Hat tip to Abyss!

You might think that identical twins have an advantage when it comes to crime—with the same DNA, who could tell them apart? But new research with a squad of scent-trained Czech police dogs reveals that even identical twins have their own individual smells, even if they live in the same house and eat the same food.

— Read more at Police Dogs Can Tell Identical Twins Apart By Scent at Discover magazine.