Many bird species can find their way home even after being brought to remote or unfamiliar locations. Over 40 years of research on homing pigeons have shown that environmental odors play a crucial role in this process. Yet ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 8, 2020
1
83
A pair of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has used machine learning to understand what a chemical smells like—a research breakthrough with potential applications in the food flavor and fragrance ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jul 29, 2020
1
225
Scientists have discovered a unique enzyme responsible for the pungent characteristic smell we call body odor or BO.
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 27, 2020
9
263
When most insects reproduce, they lay eggs that hatch into juveniles known as larvae. To provide good sources of food for the larvae, the adult insects have to carefully select where to lay the eggs. Host plants produce specific ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2020
0
9
Isocyanides are an important class of organic compounds owing to a wide range of chemical transformations they can undergo. These molecules are employed for the synthesis of various pharmaceuticals, polymers, catalysts, and ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jun 11, 2020
0
14
Quantitative biologists at CSHL have figured out how a fly brain learns to ignore overwhelmingly prevalent, mundane odors to focus on more important ones. It's an important step towards understanding how our senses work and ...
Molecular & Computational biology
May 11, 2020
1
75
Every moment of the day we are surrounded by smells. Odors can bring back memories, or quickly warn us that food has gone bad. But how does our brain identify so many different odors? And how easily can we untangle the ingredients ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 9, 2020
2
82
Like people, rats cooperate with one another and give food to those in need, but how can they be sure that other rats are being truthful about how hungry they are?
Plants & Animals
Mar 24, 2020
2
252
Researchers at the Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (Leibniz-LSB@TUM) have confirmed the presence of the rare amino acid ethionine in a plant—or more precisely, in the fruit ...
Other
Feb 28, 2020
0
48
Even though they don't have conventional noses, insects have adapted to smell odors in nearly every imaginable niche. Mosquitoes find us by our odor molecules binding to odor receptors on their antennae, bees are drawn to ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2020
0
6
