When the land has been dry and it starts to rain, there is a peculiar smell in the air, an earthy scent called petrichor. In the 1960s, two Australian scientists, Isabel Bear and Richard Thomas,...
Someone recently asked me if I had ever heard a patient complain that they could taste saline and medications when injected into their IV. Truth is, I had never heard of this before, but apparently...
Oils are defined as any net uncharged chemical substance that is a thick liquid at room temperature and is both hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (does mix with fats, or lipids)....
If you had to, would you rather become blind or loose your sense of smell? A classic question in the child’s game “would you rather?” The popular answer seems obvious: smell. Often the most...
Screens that smell like food are in our very near future? Invented by scientists at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan, these ”smelling screens” makes smells appear to come...
Sperm whales produce a black, smelly substance called ambergris which changes to a pleasant smell when exposed to air. It is rare and expensive but is used as a base in some perfumes. Ambergris...
I remember the first time I ever smelled the fragrance of a skunk. I thought someone had let off a stink bomb. You see, even back then I was a lot more familiar with emissions from test tubes...
Your cell phone wakes you up in the morning. No big deal. You reach over to turn off the alarm, touch another button, and suddenly the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts into your nose. But no...