Engineers have been successful in creating sensors that detect specific smells. But when it comes to replicating the entire discriminating ability of a nose - well, that's nothing to sniff at.
But a Palo Alto entrepreneur believes it can be done.
— From Can a computer have a sense of smell? in the San Franciso Chronicle, with thanks to inkdarkmoon for the link!
A Nobel laureate and her co-authors on a 2001 paper on the sense of smell have retracted the study, saying they had discovered problems in the data and were unable to duplicate their findings.
Linda Buck shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in medicine for her work on smell. It was not immediately clear how important the retracted research, done in mice, was to the body of work that led to her Nobel.
— Read more at Nobel laureate recants key paper on smell, at SFGate. Thanks to Clare for the link!
I've been looking forward to Rachel Herz' book for a long time. I found out about her work on the psychology of smell several years ago, and although I never got around to reading her academic work (published in reputable journals like the American Journal of Psychology and Chemical Senses), I did keep track of her frequent interviews in the popular media. The Scent of Desire is her first book, and tackles a wide range of questions on the relation between emotion and olfaction. From odor-emotional conditioning and olfactive memory to cultural differences in odor familiarity, Herz explains how odors influence our social relationships and mental health.
Smell is both a detector of danger, and a vehicle of desire. As the title suggests, The Scent of Desire is primarily focused on the latter. The author's basic premise is that emotional experience and the sense of smell are fundamentally interconnected…
On yesterday’s Diane Rehm show, guest host Susan Page talked to Rachel Herz, author of The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell:
The first and definitive book on the psychology of smell, The Scent of Desire traces the importance of smell in our lives, from nourishment to procreation…
Common physical symptoms such as fatigue, chest pain and lower back pain are related to the perception of everyday smells, University of Nottingham researchers will tell delegates at a health psychology conference on campus.
The researchers investigated how stress, intense odours and personality combined to explain everyday physical symptoms that appear to have no medical basis — such as abdominal pain, fatigue, chest pain and lower back pain.
— Just as you suspected, bad perfumes make you sick. Read the rest in Science Daily.
When it comes to a man's body odour, the fragrance -- or stench -- is in the nose of the beholder, according to U.S. researchers who suggest a single gene may determine how people perceive body odour.
The study, published online on Sunday in the journal Nature, helps explain why the same sweaty man can smell like vanilla to some, like urine to others and for about a third of adults, have no smell at all.
— And as you also suspected, what smells good to you might not smell good to others. Read more in Stinky? It's not his sweat, it's your nose (link no longer working, sorry!) at Yahoo. Thanks to Ruth for both of these links!