Cross-culturally, fragrances are used to modulate body odor, but the psychology of fragrance choice has been largely overlooked. The prevalent view is that fragrances mask an individual's body odor and improve its pleasantness. In two experiments, we found positive effects of perfume on body odor perception. Importantly, however, this was modulated by significant interactions with individual od...

Since municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills emit significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, there is considerable interest in quantifying surficial methane emissions from landfills. The authors propose a new and easier method by which to estimate methane emissions. The technique uses hundreds of ambient air VOC measurements taken within a landfill, as receptors, and solves the sta...

Odorous compounds play an important role in air pollution in industrial areas and the residential areas surrounding them. This study measured the odorous volatile organic compounds (VOC) and carbonyl compounds at Yeosu and Gwangyang, two large industrial areas of South Korea, during four seasons of 2008-2009. Along with these two cities, the same odorous compounds were measured at Suncheon, whi...

Even in a simple Pavlovian memory task an animal may form several associations that can be independently assessed by the appropriate tests. Studying conditioned odor discrimination of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster we found that animals store quality and intensity of an odor as separate memory traces. The trace of odor intensity is short-lived, decaying in <3 h. Only the last intensity v...

The rules by which odor receptors encode odors and allow behavior are still largely unexplored. Although large data sets of electrophysiological responses of receptors to odors have been generated, few hypotheses have been tested with behavioral assays. We use a data set on odor responses of Drosophila larval odor receptors coupled with chemotaxis behavioral assays to examine rules of odor codi...

This article reports on the usefulness of bilateral comparison of chemosensory information to an animal or agent tracking an odor to its source. Instantaneous concentration fields of a chemical plume diffusing in a fully developed, turbulent, open channel flow are measured using planar laser-induced fluorescence. The plume is released isokinetically 25 mm above the smooth bed (z 90), thus trans...

Many animals follow odor trails to find food, nesting sites, or mates, and they require only faint olfactory cues to do so. The performance of a tracking dog, for instance, poses the question on how the animal is able to distinguish a target odor from the complex chemical background around the trail. Current concepts of odor perception suggest that animals memorize each odor as an olfactory obj...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the prevalence and the severity of fragrance-related symptoms among hairdressers in Denmark compared with the Danish general population. Further, to characterize former hairdressers who are severely chemically intolerant to fragranced products in relation to sex, age and health- and work-related reasons for leaving the hairdressing profession. METHODS The study popul...

To fully apply already published procedures for the safety evaluation of fragrance ingredients, it is necessary to estimate exposure through different routes and leading to different potential endpoints. Worst-case scenario calculations indicate that deposition on the surface of the skin following use of cosmetics represents the major route of exposure to fragrance ingredients when conservative...

Rodents can localize odor sources by comparing odor inputs to the right and left nostrils. However, the neuronal circuits underlying such odor localization are not known. We recorded neurons in the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON) while administering odors to the ipsilateral or contralateral (ipsi- or contra-) nostril. Neurons in the AON pars externa (AONpE) showed respiration phase-locked exci...