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Those who make a habit out of drinking coffee are more sensitive to its odor and are faster to identify its aroma. Additionally, their ability to sniff out the bean also increases the more they crave coffee. This study, its authors write, provides the first evidence that coffee addicts are more sensitive to the smell of coffee than the rest of us.
— Read more at Heavy coffee drinkers can smell its aroma much easier than other people — and it seems tied to craving at ZME Science.
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These — and dozens of other differences in scent perception — are detailed in a new study, published this week in the journal PNAS. The work provides new evidence of how extraordinarily different one person’s “smellscape” may be from another’s. It’s not that some people are generally better smellers, like someone else may have better eyesight, it’s that any one person might experience certain scents more intensely than their peers.
— Read more at You Will Never Smell My World the Way I Do at The New York Times.
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The receptors that dot our noses and help us to smell also populate our tongues, according to a new study. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center have discovered working olfactory (smell) receptors in the taste-sensing cells on the papillae of the tongue. The findings were published in the journal Chemical Senses. [...] As such, the study calls into question whether the mixing of smell and taste first happens in the brain. Instead, it provides evidence suggesting the process that creates flavor may first happen in the tongue.
— Read more at Humans Smell With Their Tongues, Scientists Discover at Newsweek.
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[Eric] Holbrook, who is collaborating with the VCU team, is now trying to find a shortcut to stimulate the brain's olfactory bulb and then trigger a sensation of smell. Ultimately the researchers plan to create a device that will operate somewhat like a cochlear implant, an electronic device that partially restores hearing.
— A team from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School are trying to build a device that would restore olfaction. Read more at Building a Brain Implant for Smell at Scientific American.
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Mosquitoes searching for a meal of blood use a variety of clues to track down humans, including our body heat and the carbon dioxide in our breath. Now, research shows that a certain olfactory receptor in their antennae also serves as a detector of humans, responding to smelly chemicals in our sweat.
— Read more at How Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Sweat To Find Us at NPR.