African Elephants
A recent study has found that the African elephant has the strongest sense of smell in the animal kingdom. Scientists have found that they have the largest number of genes (around 2,000) associated with the sense of smell, around five times as many as humans' and twice as many as dogs'.
Read more about the chemistry of mercaptan, the world's smelliest substance, on the American Council of Science and Health website.
If you smell an odour for long enough, you eventually stop noticing it. This is because prolonged exposure to a strong smell is believed to saturate the olfactory epithelium with odour molecules to the point where information is no longer delivered to the brain. This is called 'adaptation'.
Some odors linger due to how volatile a molecule is. If it is more volatile, a larger amount of it becomes airborne, making it more pungent. Once vaporized, the molecules need to stick to a surface. Fabric, hair, and carpet offer prime places for them to settle into.
"In principle, you could put a drop of scent in a sealed bottle and, with a pair of one-way valves and a nose mask, repeatedly sniff out the scented air," he says. "This would eventually deplete the odor. It might take a whole lot of huffing, but it could be done."
The Gastro-intestinal tract, from mouth to anus, often smells bad.
Do you enjoy the scent of vanilla? A new study finds that this smell is universally adored. LONDON (KABC) -- Researchers at Oxford have found that the scent of vanilla is loved across the globe despite cultural differences.
The World's Favorite Scent Is Vanilla, According to Science | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine.
Some of the best odor eliminators are coffee grounds, tea, vinegar, oats, and baking soda. Leaving a bowl of any of these odor absorbers out in a room that's due for a little freshening up will help clear out the less-than-pleasant smells from the air.
“Hyperosmia is a heightened or increased sense of smell,” explains ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist and rhinologist Raj Sindwani, MD. People can experience it all the time or occasionally. And while hyperosmia doesn't always require treatment, it can signal an underlying health issue that does.
Offensive odours are smells that are very unpleasant. Most odours come from landfills, food processing plants and sewage treatment. A bad smell can prevent you from opening your windows or spending time outside. Odours can sometimes cause headaches, nausea and vomiting.
As a general rule, cats are sensitive when it comes to smells, but there are a few scents they hate that might just surprise you. They can't stand citrus and as much as you might love the smell of fresh herbs, cats hate rosemary and thyme. Banana and mustard are a big no-no too, as well as lavender and eucalyptus.
Emergency workers and survivors of war atrocities say charred flesh simply smells like nothing else. The scent is nauseating and sweet, putrid and steaky, or something like leather being tanned over a flame. The smell can be so thick and rich that it's almost a taste.
Our skin is naturally covered with bacteria. When we sweat, the water, salt and fat mix with this bacteria and can cause odor. The odor can be bad, good or have no smell at all. Factors like the foods you eat, hormones or medications can affect body odor.
An empirical test of the reaction of blood on the skin by Glindemann and colleagues [30] showed that a distinctive 'metallic' smell was produced, which was attributable to the oxidization of the hemoglobin's iron molecules in the reaction with fat lipids in the skin.
Although there is some controversy on the subject of "racial" variation in body odor, it is determined that African blacks probably produce the greatest amount of apocrine sweat, which is the known substrate for axillary odor.
If you're worried you're one of these people, one trick is to lick your wrist, wait ten seconds, then sniff the patch you licked: If it smells, chances are, so does your breath. An even more reliable method, of course, is simply to ask someone.
An olfactory hallucination (phantosmia) makes you detect smells that aren't really there in your environment. The odors you notice in phantosmia are different from person to person and may be foul or pleasant. You may notice the smells in one or both nostrils.