Odor coding in mammals is more complex than previously thought

When smelling their favorite foods, both humans and insects usually go with their instinct and try to find the source. However, according to new research by Leslie Vosshall and colleagues at Rockefeller University, ...

The nose knows – whether it’s on a fruit fly or a human. And while it would seem that how a fruit fly judges odors should differ from how a human smells, new research from Rockefeller University finds that at the neurobiological ...

Shakespeare wrote "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But would it if the molecules that generate its fragrance were to change their shape?

Using an ethologically relevant task—exploratory sniffing—Daniel Wesson and colleagues from Boston University discovered that rats are able to discriminate odors much more quickly than previously thought, ...

Scientists at Vanderbilt and Yale universities have successfully transplanted most of the "nose" of the mosquito that spreads malaria into frog eggs and fruit flies and are employing these surrogates to combat ...

For newborn mammals, including humans, identifying Mom by her odor can be critical to maternal bonding and survival. However, researchers have not understood how this odor identification develops. Now, Kevin Franks and Jeffry ...

A new peer reviewed open access data paper offers a comprehensive synthesis of the 36451 specimens preserved in the Herbarium of the University of Extremadura (UNEX Herbarium). The study was published in ...

Our internal circadian clock regulates daily life processes and is synchronized by external cues, the so-called Zeitgebers. The main cue is the light-dark cycle, whose strength is largely reduced in extreme ...

(Phys.org) —Leisurely swims in warm, tropical waters fueled by the gaze of admiring fans and a healthy vegetarian diet. The life of a manatee hardly seems likely to prompt concerns about heart disease. ...

(Phys.org) —Thousands of pyrotechnic, flashing fireflies are making a rare appearance in Utah this summer, evidence that these bioluminescent insects may be establishing larger populations in the west, ...

The origins of a young animal might have a significant impact on its behavior later on in life. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany, have been able to demonstrate ...

The history of a new type of crab, nicknamed 'The Hoff' because of its hairy chest, which lives around hydrothermal vents deep beneath the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean, has been revealed for the first ...