Olfaction in Biological News

Evolved Machines Selected as a Prime Contractor for DARPA Program to Engineer an Artificial Olfaction System

... Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to engineer an artificial olfaction system incorporating "brain-like" neural pattern recognition. The $5.1 ... in the complexities of real-world environments, for both artificial olfaction and visual object recognition. If you'd like more information about ...

Entomological Society of America names new Fellows for 2008

... research has focused on the functional organization, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, and development of the insect olfactory system, the roles of olfaction in insect behavior, and the chemical ecology of insect-host interactions. He has served as mentor for 46 postdoctoral associates, 11 Ph.D. ...

No more big stink: scent lures mosquitoes, but humans can't smell it

... ecology approach or finding smells that attract mosquitoes. The second, or what Leal has coined "reverse chemical ecology," involves studying olfaction after identifying attractants. Mosquito populations are typically monitored with two traps: the conventional carbon dioxide traps and the gravid ...

Pregnant mice block out unwelcome admirers to protect their pups

... women. "As far as we know, human pregnancy is not affected by strange male odours, but it could help explain why many women report changes in olfaction during pregnancy," says Che Serguera, who carried out the research in Minichiello's lab. ...

Meeting to highlight health impacts of smell and taste

... and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of Health, will be presenting their work at the International Symposium on olfaction and Taste. When: July 21-26, 2008 Where: Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Embarcadero, San Francisco Additional Information: Read on for a ...

International conference to release new findings on smell and taste

... Sciences ( http://www.achems.org ), which will be holding its 30th annual meeting in conjunction with the XV International Symposium on olfaction and Taste (ISOT; http://www.achems.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3493 ). During AChemS/ISOT, scientists from around the world are presenting their ...

Adaptation to parasites drive African fishes along different evolutionary paths

... from P. fainzilberi males based on olfactory communication rather than color. Some of the genes known to influence mating behavior through olfaction in other vertebrate species are genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). These genes code for receptor that bound molecules produced by ...

Nose odors and mouth odors: The brain distinguishes

... have presented the first clear evidence that olfaction is uniquely a "dual" sense, in that the brain ... powerful that people routinely mistake retronasal olfaction for 'taste,'" they wrote. "For example, we may ... odor sensed retronasally." "The role of olfaction in taste is powerful," they said. For example, ...

OHSU lab finds meth receptor that could lead to therapy

... phenylethylamines. The messenger RNA that codes for TAAR1 is expressed throughout the brain, including areas involved in motivation and drug craving, olfaction ?the sense of smell ?and temperature regulation, to name a few. "With this kind of pharmacological profile and brain distribution, we ...

Detecting explosives with honeybees

... By looking at such attributes as protein expression, the team sought to isolate genetic and physiological differences between those bees with good olfaction and those without. They also determined how well bees could detect explosives in the presence of potentially interfering agents, such as lotions, ...

Quick -- what’s that smell?

... processes olfactory information in a similar manner to how it processes visual and auditory stimuli. "Previous published work suggested that olfaction was different from vision and audition in lacking this fundamental property," notes senior author Alan Gelperin, PhD, a computational neuroscientist. ...

Can dogs smell cancer?

... have documented the abilities of dogs to identify chemicals that are diluted as low as parts per trillion. The clinical implications of canine olfaction first came to light in the case report of a dog alerting its owner to the presence of a melanoma by constantly sniffing the skin lesion. Subsequent ...

Neuroscientists discover new cell type that may help brain maintain memories of smells

... neurons then send signals to a brain region called the olfactory bulb, where the work of recognizing the odor begins. One of the puzzling aspects of olfaction is how our perception of an odor can evolve over multiple sniffs. Because of their unique ability to maintain their activity between sniffs, Blanes ...

Male elephants woo females with precise chemistry

... David R. Greenwood, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland and scientist with the Molecular olfaction Group at HortResearch in New Zealand. Scientists have assumed that only one form of frontalin would be made by elephants, but by merely changing ...

Fighting malaria by manipulating mosquitoes' sense of smell

... use of scented baits. It is widely considered to be an environmental and technological success. Unlike insecticides, the chemicals involved in insect olfaction tend to be relatively non-toxic. They also tend to be specific to closely related species, so widespread application is not likely to impact other ...

Ancient olfaction protein is shared by many bugs, offering new pest control target

... smell was restored, arguing not only that the gene's sequence has been conserved over 250 million years of evolution but that the gene's function in olfaction has also been conserved. Future designs of pesticides and disease-controlling insect repellents may be able to utilize this commonality to "blind" ...