Common experience tells us that particular scents of childhood can leave quite an impression, for better or for worse. Now, researchers reporting the results of a brain imaging study online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that first scents really do enjoy a "privileged" status in the brain.

— From Early Scents Really Do Get 'Etched' In The Brain at Science Daily, with thanks to Ruth for the link!

The K-9 Unit of the New Jersey Department of Corrections, while training seven recently acquired cell-phone-sniffing dogs, first put a whole bunch of cell-phone parts in a plastic box to create a kind of sachet of cell-phone scent for use in imprinting. The basic, pervasive cell-phone smell that built up in the closed box was powerful—a sweetish, metallic, ozoney, weird robotic reek.

— Ian Frazier in Scratch and Sniff at The New Yorker.

In two separate experiments, researchers were able to influence participants' behavior by exposing them to "cleanliness" in the form of a common cleaning agent's odor — in this case, citrus-scented Windex. It turned out that people who sat in a room spritzed with Windex were more likely to act fairly and charitably than those sniffing unscented air.

— From Do 'Clean' Smells Encourage Clean Behavior? at Time, where you'll also find a series of short articles about fragrance, The World of Smell.

Sofia’s world is largely a dark and silent one. As a blind and deaf child of 9, her sense of smell is one of the few means by which she can interpret the landscape. And what she is smelling today, on a small, laminated square, is the seaside. The ozonic scent of salty air, wet sand, seaweed and ocean spray has been replicated and impregnated on to a scrap of paper.

— From Communicating with children using smells at the UK Times Online.