At first he smelled nothing except the faint, sweet fragrance of the nearby trees.

Suddenly, the wind picked up. “We have an oh-my-God smell!” [Chemical engineer Chuck] McGinley exclaimed.

Immediately one of his colleagues pressed a Nasal Ranger to his nose. The 14-inch-long smell-measuring device, which looks like a cross between a radar gun and a bugle, is one of Mr. McGinley’s most significant inventions.

— Read more in Sometimes, Life Stinks. So He Invented the Nasal Ranger at The New York Times. Hat tip to HemlockSillage and Liza!