Posted by Robin on 18 Comments
Bai Yun is curious, unpredictable, and mischievous. She enjoys anything scented with cloves or pine and men's cologne!
— From Meet the Pandas at the San Diego Zoo, where the the pandas "like to play with enrichment items like piles of ice or sawdust, puzzles made of bamboo with food inside, and different scents like spices". At the moment of this writing, you can watch Bai Yun sleeping in the birthing den on the zoo's Panda Cam. Many thanks to JanJan for the link.
Posted by Robin on 16 Comments
What drives a jumping spider wild? A certain fragrance among members of the opposite sex, apparently, that is acquired by eating blood.
— From The Alluring Power of Blood in Spiders at The New York Times.
Posted by Robin on 14 Comments
Scientists at the University of Toronto found that by genetically tweaking fruit flies so they failed to produce a particular type of pheromone or odour, it turned them irresistible to their species.
— Read more at Scientists create 'sexual tsunami' at the UK Telegraph.
Posted by Robin on 2 Comments
Scientists were able to train the honeybees to associate two similar odors with different nectar rewards. The results left little doubt over what honeybees like to sip: soda-sweet nectar.
"Bees tend to like sugary solutions that are about equivalent to the concentration of sugar in Coca Cola (around 30 percent sucrose)," lead author Geraldine Wright told Discovery News.
— From Honeybees Don't Fall for Cheap Perfume at The Discovery Channel.
Posted by Robin on 4 Comments
Although a flower's odor can be composed of hundreds of chemicals, a moth uses just a handful to recognize the flower.
It's like identifying a piece of music from hearing only the notes played by a few key instruments, said lead researcher Jeffrey A. Riffell.
[...] The finding provides insight into how the brain processes a specific smell from the sea of odors floating through the air.
— From How Moths Key Into Scent Of A Flower, about research conducted at the University of Arizona, at ScienceDaily.