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...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......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...