Study reveals how smell receptors work

All senses must reckon with the richness of the world, but nothing matches the challenge faced by the olfactory system that underlies our sense of smell. We need only three receptors in our eyes to sense all the colors of ...

A caffeine buzz helps bees learn to find specific flowers

There's nothing like a shot of espresso when you need to get some studying done—and now, it seems like bees learn better with a jolt of their favorite caffeine-laced nectar, too. In a paper published July 28 in the journal ...

Mosquito sperm have 'sense of smell'

Vanderbilt biologists have discovered that mosquito sperm have a "sense of smell" and that some of same chemicals that the mosquito can smell cause the sperm to swim harder.

Odor suppression causes bad wine smell

(Phys.org) —A bad, musty smell sometimes ruins a bottle of corked wine. Since the 1990s, researchers have known that this unpleasant odor comes from the chemical 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), which forms when a fungus that ...

Robot with frog egg smell sensor (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the University of Tokyo have invented a novel means of improving a robot's sense of smell, by using inexpensive olfactory sensors containing frog eggs.

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Odor

An odor or odour is caused by one or more volatilized chemical compounds, generally at a very low concentration, that humans or other animals perceive by the sense of olfaction. Odors are also commonly called scents, which can refer to both pleasant and unpleasant odors. The terms fragrance, scent, and aroma are used primarily by the food and cosmetic industry to describe a pleasant odor, and are sometimes used to refer to perfumes. In contrast, malodor, stench, reek, and stink are used specifically to describe unpleasant odors.

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