smell

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

...y identified a key gene essential for the sense of smell in fruit flies now shows that this gene's function...their own version of the gene, the flies' sense of smell was restored, arguing not only that the gene's sequence has been conserved over 250 million years of...

Love at first smell

Why do some males smell better than others? Scientists at Cardiff Universi... important to have a mix of MHC types. Females use smell to identify partners with suitable MHC molecules: choosing only males with the correct mix of immune...

Scientists journey to southern Africa to unravel the secret world of elephant communication

... to enable elephants to focus their keen senses of smell and hearing on unfamiliar noises and odors in the air. But O'Connell-Rodwell believes they could be responding to tactile sensations as well. "Bulls often lay their trunk on the ground when freezing," she observes. "We think they may be using it as ...

Decoding the logic of olfaction

...dividuals. For example, most people don't like the smell of skunk odor, but they do like the smell of chocolate," she said. The researchers also found that the spatial representations of the odors i...

Genpathway and Baylor College of Medicine Identify New Genes in Breast Cancer

...dividuals. For example, most people don't like the smell of skunk odor, but they do like the smell of chocolate," she said. The researchers also found that the spatial representations of the odors i...

Study shows humans have ability to track odors, much like bloodhounds

...who had no olfactory nerves and therefore couldn't smell at all, a condition known as anosmia. Normal subj...reas of the primary olfactory cortex - the brain's smell center - devoted to them, indicating that the brain at least encodes information that could help it ...

Study shows eutrophic lakes may not recover for a millennium

...nnot be underestimated. Lake Mendota has a certain smell about it on some summer days now," Carpenter explains, "but we're going to smell a lot more of that." Steps that can be taken immediately, Carpenter says, include eliminating the i...

Nose odors and mouth odors: The brain distinguishes

...05, issue of Neuron , researchers report that the smell of chocolate activated different brain regions according to whether the odor was introduced into the olfactory system through the mouth or through the nose. In a joint research effort led by Dana M Small of The John B Pierce Laboratory and Yale Univ...

Carnegie Mellon cyLab researchers work to develop new red tide monitoring

...ritating vapors from red tide algae or the noxious smell from the rotting carcasses of poisoned fish linger along the coast, impacting tourism. Nationwide, all forms of red tide algae cause commercial fisheries to lose $18 million a year. More than $20 million was spent on public healthcare to handle thou...

Fighting malaria by manipulating mosquitoes' sense of smell

...f malaria by manipulating the mosquitoes' sense of smell is the object of an ambitious research project, led by Vanderbilt University, that has been selected to receive $8.5 million as part of the Grand Challenges to Global Health. The initiative, which was launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundatio...

Does manganese inhaled from the shower represent a public health threat?

...rain," said Spangler. "The nerve cells involved in smell are a direct pathway for toxins to enter the brain. Once inside these small nerves, manganese can travel throughout the brain." Elsner and Spangler extrapolated data from rodents to estimate human exposure to manganese during showering. They found t...

Researcher says flu responders can learn from 1918 epidemic

...lack, and people reporting being able to literally smell the body decaying before the patient died." At the time, limited scientific and medical knowledge led some - including prominent governmental health officials -- to identify the cause of the disease to arcane notions such as the wrath of an angry Go...

Past experience of pheromones induces dominant courtship behavior in fruit flies

...ior over young males if he has been exposed to the smell of normal adult males during a critical period in ...intriguingly, it was not enough for young males to smell these pheromones--the pheromones had to be carried by active adult males. The effect was so strong t...

Neurons generated in the adult brain learn to respond to novel stimuli

...luding those involved with memory and the sense of smell ?well into adulthood. Very recent work, in particular a number of studies from the MGH-HMS CNSR team, shows that neural precursors/stem cells can be induced to form some of the much more complex neurons in the cerebral cortex, the brain's highest-lev...

How Fruitflies Know It's Time for Lunch

...t the quality of available food, determined by its smell and taste. Scientists studying the fruitfly Drosophila have traced the path of olfactory signals beginning with chemical receptors in the mouth, which set off neurons that signal the antennal lobe of the central nervous system. From here, the electr...

Leading lampreys to slaughter: Pheromone for scourge of Great Lakes identified

... steroid with potency so great that lampreys would smell a single gram dissolved in 10 billion liters of water, enough to fill 5,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This level of potency tops that of all other fish attractants, including those of salmon. To find the pheromone, the researchers extracted 8,0...

Jefferson scientists identify gene defect leading to abnormal skin development and cancer

... steroid with potency so great that lampreys would smell a single gram dissolved in 10 billion liters of water, enough to fill 5,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This level of potency tops that of all other fish attractants, including those of salmon. To find the pheromone, the researchers extracted 8,0...

Worms know bad food when they smell it

...won't eat food with that flavor in the future. The smell elicits an instant wave of nausea." That aversion is triggered by signals that the olfactory system sends to the brain. Similar forms of learning have been observed in a broad range of animals, including invertebrates such as snails and fish. "We don...

Portable cocaine sensor developed at UC Santa Barbara

..., or the coffee that is sometimes used to mask the smell from dogs." At this point the new sensor detects cocaine in the blood or saliva to a degree of a few micromolars. This is equivalent to the concentration of cocaine that would result from dropping a kilogram of cocaine into an olympic-sized swimming...

Duck-billed dino crests not linked to sense of smell

...stors, and that the primary region of the sense of smell was located right in front of the eyes ?and coincidentally, that's where it is in birds, crocodiles, mammals and basically all four-legged animals." Evans studied fossils from a group of herbivorous dinosaurs called lambeosaurs, which are often refe...

Warbling whales speak a language all their own

...or of the paper. With limited sight and sense of smell in water, marine mammals are more dependent on sound--which travels four times faster in water than air--to communicate. For six months each year, all male humpback whales in a population sing the same song during mating season. Thought to attract fe...

Less is more, gene study shows

...ons, they found that genes related to the sense of smell and the ability to taste bitterness were overrepresented in the collection of human pseudogenes. So were genes concerned with the immune response. The findings made sense to Zhang. "We know that humans have reduced olfactory sensitivity, so the find...

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

...at weren't really hiding." The perception of a smell begins when odor molecules in the air interact wit...es to the possible connection between the sense of smell and Alzheimer's disease. The Case investigators found that the same biological machinery that helps...

Losing sleep undoes the rejuvenating effects new learning has on the brain

...ly reach the exit. The second group could see and smell the exit platform, which had a citrus odor. The researchers moved the platform every fourth trial, requiring the animal to rely on its senses, not on memory, to find it. This task did not engage the hippocampus because the rat did not need a mental m...

Pennsylvania researchers find liver transplants provide metabolic cure for rare genetic disease

...he body. The disease gets its names from the sweet smell of the urine. The accumulation of amino acids in the blood can cause metabolic crisis at any age, which can lead to brain swelling, stroke and even sudden death. Over a patient's lifetime, chronic instability of blood amino acids can result in serio...

'Scent of a woman' tells male redback spiders to find a mate

...rade laughs. "They do this without contact -- they smell how many females are around them." Kasumovic rear... to survive the trip to find her." When males can smell females, they develop rapidly, trading a smaller body size and less fat reserves against getting to ...

Honey helps problem wounds

...he newly formed layers of skin.' Some wounds often smell unpleasant ?an enormous strain on the patient. Yet honey helps here too by reducing the smell. 'Even wounds which consistently refused to heal for years can, in our experience, be brought under control with medihoney ?and this frequently happens with...

Primates take weather into account when searching for fruits

...conditions--as opposed to sensory cues such as the smell of ripe fruit--accounted for the behavioral trend they observed. These findings are consistent with the idea that monkeys make foraging decisions on the basis of episodic (or "event-based") memories of whether or not a tree previously carried fruit,...

Researchers show how brain decodes complex smells

...y to hear a symphony. Humans may rely on the same smell decoding system, because mice and men have similar...gle cells responding to multiple components in the smell of a freshly baked cookie? Or does the brain process each scent component like a jigsaw puzzle piece...

Arctic expedition will investigate alien-like glacier

...eventually visited the site and noticed the strong smell of rotten eggs that indicated the presence of sulfur. Grasby then visited the in 1999 and 2001 and collected samples of the water and mineral deposits from the spring, which contained new forms of bacteria and an extremely rare mineral known as vater...

Smell of success for nanobiosensors

...al protection or security. "The potential uses of smell technology are endless," notes Josep Samitier, the...sors, he says, represent a 'major leap forward' in smell technology and a clear example of a biomimetic devices obtained by converging Nano-Bio-Info technolo...

In drug design, a loose fit may be best bet

...s are designed for a host of health problems, from smell and taste disorders to heart disease, asthma, migraine, and pain. The study is published in the May 12, 2006, issue of the "Journal of Biological Chemistry". The researchers looked at thyrotropin-releasing hormone, or TRH, a hormone released in the ...

Quick -- what’s that smell?

...king as little as a hundred milliseconds longer to smell an odor results in more accurate identification of...rs, while animals with a highly developed sense of smell - such as dog, rat, or cat - may have over a thousand different receptor types. It is thought that p...

Mice learn tasks that may help treat human psychiatric disorders

...e was hidden and also varied the outer texture and smell of the bowls. The rodents learned to find the cereal by using a cue such as the bowl's outer texture. After experience solving a number of tasks with this cue, the animals were given a new cue for finding the cereal, such as the bowl's smell. "Li...

'Cellular antennae' on algae give clues to how human cells receive signals

...such as those in the nose involved in the sense of smell and those in the developing nervous system that sculpt our brains. Uncovering this series of reactions will make it possible to test, for instance, drugs that can affect cilia, in the hope of finding substances that would also be effective in higher...

Contrary to common wisdom, scientist discovers some mammals can smell objects under water

...eretofore thought impossible -- using the sense of smell under water. The results of the research by Vande...se because the common wisdom is that mammals can't smell underwater,' said Catania, who earlier this year won a $500,000 "genius grant" from the John D. and ...

Researchers examine why food tastes bad to chemotherapy recipients

...patients suffer from malnutrition due to taste and smell dysfunction. "Unfortunately, these problems that impact nutrition and quality of life are underestimated and understudied by oncologists," said Andrea Dietrich, Virginia Tech professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE). Dietrich belie...

Sea urchin genome suprisingly similar to man and may hold key to cures

...or hears has genes involved in vision, hearing and smell in humans," Calestani said. "The comparison of human genes with their corresponding ancestral sea urchin genes may give important insight on their function in humans, in the same way the study of history helps understanding the reality of our modern ...

Microbes compete with animals for food by making it stink

...aid. "It could have been that the predators didn't smell the rotten fish, but that's not consistent with what we know about carrion on the roadway. It could have been that the predators smelled it, but didn't want it." Counting the species found in the traps confirmed the level of attraction to the vario...

When smell cells fail they call in stem cell reserves

...lls to do all the repair work. “The ability to smell is crucial for eating, mating and survival, and it’s important that the olfactory system be fully operational all the time,?explains Reed. “The HBCs act as a fail-safe to ensure continued function of the sense of smell.? The discovery of these two...

Baby fish 'smell their way home'

...t the most attractive seemed to be that they could smell the unique trace of their home reef ?rather like salmon can smell the home river. "We know these late stage fish larvae, generally between about 9 and 14mm long, a...

Deep in the ocean, a clam that acts like a plant

...nk again. The hydrogen sulfide gives them a strong smell of rotting eggs. ...

Do you hear what i see?

...inking, in which hearing, taste, touch, sight, and smell are each processed in distinct areas of the brain and only later integrated. The new research, led by Christoph Kayser, PhD, at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, was published in the February 21 issue of The J...

Stopping plants from getting sick

...of seeds. Some fungi can even make infected plants smell like rotting fish. In general, these infections ca... a long time ?keeping the sooty black smut and the smell of rotting fish from Canada's wheat fields. ...

Common algae helps illustrate mammalian brain electrical circuitry

...ding insight into the complexities of the sense of smell and may ultimately yield a better understanding of... has a behavioral component. "The perception of smell is quite complex," Ehlers said. "The brain can decode thousands of smells that enter the nose, discr...

Scientists to track impact of Asian dust and pollution on clouds, weather, climate change

...ding insight into the complexities of the sense of smell and may ultimately yield a better understanding of... has a behavioral component. "The perception of smell is quite complex," Ehlers said. "The brain can decode thousands of smells that enter the nose, discr...

OHSU lab finds meth receptor that could lead to therapy

...tivation 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 hypothesized TAAR1 could mediate some of meth’s metabolic and behavioral effects," explained Grandy, who also directed the groundbrea...

Carnegie Mellon University research shows how sensory-deprived brain compensates

...l with sensory loss. Losing sight, hearing, taste, smell or touch are common disabling side effects of trau...mporarily remove a patient's ability to see, hear, smell or touch on one side of the body to force the same sense on the other side of the body to expand its...

Penn study on olfactory nerve cells shows why we smell better when we sniff

...that detect only one type of stimuli, our sense of smell works double duty, detecting both chemical and mec... perceives what we smell, explains why we sniff to smell something, and why our sense of smell is synchronized with inhaling. "The driving force for such...

Smell may outlast other senses

...lems such as sinusitis. However the ability to smell drops off much quicker in older people who were ta...imental effect on smell. “However our sense of smell is vulnerable to both the direct effects of some medications and changes associated with a number of...

Female Antarctic seals give cold shoulder to local males

...lity. Another possibility is that females can use smell to determine whether they are related to the male. Commenting on the practical implications for fur seal populations, Dr Hoffman said, "Antarctic fur seals are a key player in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Scientists conducting research to preserv...

Researchers find link between food odors and lifespan in fruit flies

...de a startling discovery ?in fruit flies, just the smell of food can have a negative effect on longevity. ..."Not only can they not have their cake ?they can't smell their cake" without shortening their lifespans, said Wayne Van Voorhees, a faculty member in the Mol...

Cloning the smell of the seaside

...lia have discovered exactly what makes the seaside smell like the seaside ?and bottled it! The age-old mys...sled, twice over. Firstly because that distinctive smell is not ozone, it is dimethyl sulphide. And secondly, because inhaling it is not necessarily good for...

Get a whiff of this: Smell test could sniff out serious health problems

...re the same.? In humans, Frank says the sense of smell is one of our less robust senses. He says it’s mor...s well as children (who may be too young to link a smell with a name) and people representing international cultures (who are unfamiliar with some common odo...

New research shows sharks use their noses and bodies to locate smells

...avored with food odor. This produced four separate smell targets for the sharks to locate. "In addition, we also tested the sharks under two light conditions – fluorescent and infrared – and in two sensory conditions – with their lateral lines intact or lesioned by streptomycin," explained Gardiner. ...

Turn-ons and turn-offs for neurons

...reason. Every time we think and experience, touch, smell or fear, millions of neurons in our brain becomes active. These nerve cells communicate with each other by chemical and electrical impulses to compute incoming sensory information and integrate it via distinct brain regions. With 20,000 - 25,000 gene...