It smells fishy: Copper prevents fish from avoiding danger

Fish fail to detect danger in copper-polluted water. A new study, to be presented at the meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology on the 5th of July, shows that fish cannot smell a danger odor signal emitted by other ...

Genomic analysis solves the turtle mystery

The turtle has always been considered somewhat odd in evolutionary terms. In addition to lacking the hole in the skull—the temporal fenestra—that is characteristic of the egg-laying amniotes, the structure of its shell ...

Ozone masks plant's volatiles, plant eating insects confused

(Phys.org) —Increases in ground-level ozone, especially in rural areas, may interfere not only with predator insects finding host plants, but also with pollinators finding flowers, according to researchers from Penn State ...

Do we owe our sense of smell to epigenetics?

(Phys.org) —Olfactory sensory neurons – nerve cells in the nose – directly sense molecules that convey scent, then send the signals to the brain. Biologists have long wondered how it's possible for each nerve cell to ...

How cells in the nose detect odors

The human nose has millions of olfactory neurons grouped into hundreds of different neuron types. Each of these neuron types expresses only one odorant receptor, and all neurons expressing the same odorant receptor plug into ...

Ants have an exceptionally 'hi-def' sense of smell

The first complete map of the ants' olfactory system has discovered that the eusocial insects have four to fives more odorant receptors—the special proteins that detect different odors—than other insects.

Artificial sex pheromones could reduce pest infestation

(Phys.org) -- A University of California, Davis, discovery that male navel orangeworms respond more readily to artificial or "deceitful" female sex pheromones than to natural sex pheromones could lead to a better mating disruption ...

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