The findings, published in Nature, reveal that olfactory receptors indeed follow a logic rarely seen in other receptors of the nervous system. While most receptors are precisely shaped to pair with only a few select molecules in a lock-and-key fashion, most olfactory receptors each bind to a large number of different molecules. Their promiscuity in pairing with a variety of odors allows each receptor to respond to many chemical components. From there, the brain can figure out the odor by considering the activation pattern of combinations of receptors.

— Neuroscientist (and MacArthur Fellow) Vanessa Ruta and her colleagues have published The structural basis of odorant recognition in insect olfactory receptors. Read more in New Research Reveals How Smell Receptors Work – Answers Decades-Old Question of Odor Recognition at SciTechDaily, or see a longer article (Secret Workings of Smell Receptors Revealed for First Time) at Quanta magazine.

There are also tantalizing hints that body odor doesn’t just influence romantic relationships, but platonic ones, too. Earlier this summer, a study by Noam Sobel at the Weizmann Institute in Israel reported that people who became fast friends with each other have similar body odor prints, as determined by odor panelists as well as electronic noses.

— Read more in What Your Body Odor Says About You at Time.

We choose cosmetics that match our genetically-determined odour preferences. [Agnieszka] Sorokowska and her colleagues have shown that it is possible to make assessments of someone's personality based on their choice of fragrances. It suggests that guests of Louis XIV might have been able to pick up a thing or two about the king by sniffing the air upon arrival.

— Sorokowska is a psychologist at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. Read more in Why single people smell different at BBC.

For Janet Marple, 54, of Edina, Minn., coffee, peanut butter and feces all smell vaguely like burning rubber or give off a sickly sweetness. It’s like nothing she has ever smelled in her lifetime.

“I literally hold my breath when shampooing my hair, and laundry is a terrible experience. Even fresh-cut grass is terrible,” said Ms. Marple, a former corporate banker.

— Read more about post-Covid parosmia in Distorted, Bizarre Food Smells Haunt Covid Survivors at The New York Times.