Saturday, December 28, 2013

Odor in the City

Brief review of this week's strange odors:

Dallas, Texas — A mysterious odorwas reported this Saturday, December 27th by hundreds of locals.
At about 11:40 a.m., the first call of a "strange chemical odor" came from the Mid State United Recycling facility. It was found that the odor was a result of a byproduct created during the recycling of motor oil.
"Whatever piece of equipment they use for this process heated up to the point that it started venting out of the facility," Evans said.
Evans said HazMat reported the byproduct is not hazardous.
"And it may take some time for the smell to dissipate," he said.
Andy Rodriguez, a resident in the area, said the smell spurred concern.
"I don't know if I should go home or not because I'm not sure if it's gas, or just a smell like gas," she said.
Authorities are still investigating the incident to confirm whether the smell is indeed the result of the motor oil recycling process.

La Jolla, California: A non-profit organization is taking legal action over the noxious odor at La Jolla Cove.
“Citizens for Odor Nuisance Abatement” is suing the city of San Diego, Interim Mayor Todd Gloria and the state of California.
According to the Complaint, the plaintiffs claim it’s the city’s responsibility to keep the public area free of the offensive smell, which it has failed to do.

What to Do About Smelly La Jolla Cove
The group says the city is to blame because of a fence erected along the sidewalk that spans the cove. Because people don’t have access to the rocks anymore, birds and sea lions can climb higher up the bluffs to defecate, they claim.
The complaint alleges that people have become sick and nearby businesses have lost revenue because of the odor. According to the lawsuit, boxer Floyd Mayweather booked two villas and six rooms at the La Valencia hotel, only to leave 15 minutes later because of the smell, costing the hotel more than $5,000 in one day.
Owners of the La Valencia Hotel and George’s By the Cove – two prominent La Jolla businesses – say the city is dragging its feet to fix the smell problem, which many believe is a growing issue.
Some locals that spoke with NBC 7 Friday, December 27, 2013 said the fences designed to keep people off the bluffs are making the sea lions feel more at home in La Jolla, adding to the waste problem.
Mother and son Nancy and Michael Garcia visited La Jolla Cove Friday and said the stench was unbearable

Plainview, New York. The Nassau County Fire Marshal’s Hazardous Materials Division was called to a Plainview neighborhood Wednesday after reports of a noxious odor near the Old Bethpage Village restoration. The division was tasked with determining the source and cause of the smell, which residents described as a mix between rotten eggs, sewage and gas, 1010 WINS’ Gary Baumgarten reported Thursday, December 26, 2013.

New Castle, UK  An investigation is under way after a fire on board a ferry in the North Sea forced it to return to Newcastle.
RAF helicopters winched two passengers and four crew off the MS King Seaways, which was sailing to Amsterdam, when it was 30 miles off Flamborough Head.Passenger Jamie Petterson said that people were "generally very calm and in reasonable spirits" when the initial fire alarm sounded, but that he later encountered "a strong smell of smoke".

Saturday, December 14, 2013

You are unique. And so is your sense of smell.

The 400 genes responsible for our olfaction noses can vary greatly  - with more  than 900,000 variations of those genes. And even if your genomes are similar, the receptors can be about 30 percent different.

It's very commonif one person likes a certain smell and the other person doesn't. But a surprise finding by Duke researchers shows that no two people smell things the same way. They are very different at the receptor levels 

Genes code odor receptors, but how are these receptors activated? Researchers from Duke, Rockefeller University, University of Pennsyklvania and Monnell
identified 27 receptors that had a significant response to at least one odorant they used in the study thus doubling the number of known odorant-activated receptors (now 40).

So we are now one little step closer to understanding the consequences of these receptor activation and understanding the sense of smell. 


The missense of smell: functional variability in the human odorant receptor repertoire, Joel D Mainland, Andreas Keller, et al. Nature Neuroscience, Early online Dec. 8, 2013. DOI: 10.1038/nn.3598

Monday, December 2, 2013

Learning to become afraid and passing it to children

Animals can pass on information about a traumatic experience to their offsprings. Researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University have found that when a mouse learns to become afraid of a certain odor, his or her pups will be more sensitive to that odor, even though the pups have never encountered it. This is an example of an "epigenetic" alteration: transmitted not in the letter-by-letter sequence of the DNA, but in its packaging or chemical modifications.

In mice taught to fear cherry-blossom-smelling chemical
acetophenone, the odorant receptor gene that responds to this compound has a changed pattern of methylation while 
the sequence of the gene encoding the receptor that responds to the odor remained unchanged. And it's all because DNA from the sperm of smell-sensitized mice is altered. As senior author of the study Kerry Ressler says. "There is some evidence that some of the generalized effects of diet and hormone changes, as well as trauma, can be transmitted epigenetically."

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Smelling and Aging

Smells affect us in both short- and long-term. In worms and flies, too much smell of the opposite sex can speed up the critter's ageing process and shorten its life. Even if none actually has sex. Similar to the effect of smelling too much good food even without eating it.

The explanation lies in the fact that the fruit fly sperm is toxic and every sexual encounter shortens the lives of females.  If the males were actually allowed to have sex, their lifespans bounced back. Perhaps because od the trade-off between sex and longevity and, more importantly, the clash between expectations and experience.  If we smell food and can’t eat any, the build-up of digestive enzymes can actually cause us harm. Likewise, male flies that smell females but can’t actually mate may suffer the consequences for their unfulfilled expectations.


References 

 Gendron, Kuo, Harvanek, Chung, Yew, Dierick & Pletcher. 2013. Drosophila Life Span and Physiology Are Modulated by Sexual Perception and Reward. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1243339

Maures, Booth, Benayoun, Izrayelit, Schroeder & Brunet. 2013. Males Shorten the Life Span of C. elegans Hermaphrodites via Secreted Compounds. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1244160

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Moth loses its sense of smell in captivity

Domesticated silkmoth, especially females. have a much more limited perception of environmental odours compared to their wild relatives.
This was demonstrated when their responses to odour stimulation were compared to those of the closely related wild species Bombyx mandarina. The scientists recorded electroantennograms of individuals of both species that were stimulated with different scents from leaves or flowers.
Combining classical methods of electro-antennogram recordings with advanced imaging techniques to analyze responses in the olfactory centre of the silk moth brains opens new perspectives in olfactory research: from molecule to behavior.

S. Bisch-Knaden, T. Daimon, T. Shimada, B. S. Hansson, S. Sachse. Anatomical and functional analysis of domestication effects on the olfactory system of the silkmoth Bombyx mori. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2013; 281 (1774): 20132582 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2582
Barani Raman, PhD, of the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, set out to find an answer. Using locusts, which have a relatively simple sensory system ideal for studying brain activity, he found the odors prompted neural activity in the brain that allowed the locust to correctly identify the stimulus, even
Read more at http://scienceblog.com/68079/swarming-insect-provides-clues-to-how-the-brain-processes-smells/#8bYjfuLDo2Abc7Sb.99

Saturday, November 23, 2013

e-nose will sniff dangerous food

New mobile enose developed by ART21 JSC is no bigger than a flash drive, has a sensor array and data transfer technologies – Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. 

The company’s CEO Augustas AlesiĆ«nas says that the e-nose’s purpose is to ‘smell’ certain gases released by meat, poultry, and fish, and using a number of algorithms to identify:
  • Food's level of freshness (from very fresh to dangerous to consume)
  • Dangerous chemical elements and toxic substances which can cause serious diseases and cancer.
The e-nose will transfer data to a smartphone, where software will analyze and present data in a simple and user-friendly way. Users will also be able to receive the nose’s test results using smartphones, and share their experience, opinions, and information on social websites. 



 Mr AlesiĆ«nas predicts that the e-nose s retail price could be around EUR 150, a little over $200.


Friday, November 22, 2013

T-shirt with silver lining

Run faster, smell better.

The secret to this t-shirt is that silver threads incorporated into the material for the T-shirts help neutralize odor from sweat. The moisture in sweat combined with air causes the silver to oxidize and release silver ions. Silver ions infiltrate the cell membrane of the odorant bacteria and break them down preventing mutation and reproduction.

Over 2000 people have already contributed to Y Athletics Kickstarter campaign so the product might actually take off.

As they say SilverAir is  a shirt designed from scratch by focusing on the qualities you love and eliminating the problems you hate. 

You can also check for their updates on twitter: @yathletics

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Apple or Pear?

Apple or Pear? You won't have any problems distinguishing it by smell. But for an electronic nose this could be a problem. But a team from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain and the University of GĂ€vle in Sweden was able to rigg an array of 32 commercially available sensors that can sniff a bit of crushed fruit and tell if the source was an apple or a pear.

The sensors can detect a wide variety of odorous chemicals, including natural gas, carbon monoxide, alcohol, propane, toluene, by measuring  conductance changes across a narrow gap between two electrodes as trace gases adsorb to the electrode’s surface. Different gasses produce distinct curves of voltage over time, and each type of sensor has different response characteristics. There is, some sensor-to-sensor variation in response and changing the sensor’s operating temperature further modifies its response curves.
The team characterized each of the 32 resulting signals by three dynamic parameters: transient slope (the rate of initial rapid increase when the gas is first detected), saturation slope (the slower rate of voltage increase as the senor reaches its greatest response), and maximum slope  (measured when the sensor is closed off from the sample).
The investigators subjected each of these parameters to principal component analysis, so that each electronic sniff generated patterns of 96 points in three-dimensional space for each of 20 sample runs. They then fed the results into 10 different pattern recognition programs* and asked each one, in effect, “Is it an apple, or is it a pear?”  All but one of them could correctly identify apples or pears nine times out of 10, or better. And one pattern-reader—IB1, a nearest-neighbor algorithm— got it right on the nose 100% of the time. And this is better than most people could do.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Beating Bad Breath

A new book by a dentist who worked with more than 7,000 people in 25 years with seemingly incurable halitosis.
The first edition of Beating Bad Breath was published in 1993,the 2013 edition is enriched with new information.

You might also want to check the other book devoted to the same topic:


Bad Breath: Research Perspectives

books.google.com/books?id=VwBqAAAAMAAJ
Mel Rosenberg - 1995 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions


Bad Breath

books.google.com/books?isbn=0722529538
Leon Chaitow - 1994 - ‎Snippet view

Bad Breath: A Multidisciplinary Approach

books.google.com/books?isbn=9061867797
Daniel Van Steenberghe, ‎Mel Rosenberg - 1996 - ‎Preview

Burps, Boogers, and Bad Breath

books.google.com/books?isbn=0756502284
Brief text describes how some of the unpleasant things the body produces, like gas, ear wax, pus, and sweat, are important aids to staying healthy.

My Life as a Belching Baboon with Bad Breath

books.google.com/books?isbn=1418553166
Bill Myers - 2005 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions
Wally's got a bad case of the "I WANTS!

Eagles Have Bad Breath: Or, How to Identify Birds Without ...

books.google.com/books?id=JEdHAAAAYAAJ
Jack Aulis - 1980 - ‎Snippet view - ‎More editions

Secrets To Curing Bad Breath Now!

books.google.com/books?id=En4rinDExLAC

Bad Breath

books.google.com/books?isbn=1424154871
Browne Brownlee - 2007 - ‎No preview
Autumn Martin is attending her third school in five years.

Curing Common Complaints: From Bad Breath to Fatigue, ...

books.google.com/books?isbn=0875962629
1995 - ‎Snippet view
Offers tips to help rejuvenate dry hair, stop snoring, and other everyday maladies
 


  1. Curing Common Complaints: From Bad Breath to Fatigue, ...

    books.google.com/books?isbn=0875962629
    1995 - ‎Snippet view
    Offers tips to help rejuvenate dry hair, stop snoring, and other everyday maladies
  2. Bad Breath: A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, and ...

    books.google.com/books?isbn=0597837600
    Icon Health Publications - 2003 - ‎No preview
    The book is designed for physicians, medical students preparing for Board examinations, medical researchers, and patients who want to become familiar with research dedicated to bad breath. If your time is valuable, this book is for you.
  3. The Bad Breath Book: Your Complete Guide to Combating Halitosis

    books.google.com/books?isbn=0967049709
    Fred Siemon - 1999 - ‎No preview
    This book is your comprehensive guide to understanding, diagnosing, and solving the puzzle of halitosis.
  4. Health [a Monthly Devoted to the Cause and Cure of Disease]

    books.google.com/books?id=amwhAQAAIAAJ
    1903 - ‎Read - ‎More editions
    Again, mucus collects, behind and above an enlarged tonsil, where it is sure to decompose and cause bad breath. Any portion of the respiratory tract, from the throat to the lungs, may be the seat of the difficulty. The mucous surface is liable to ...
  5. The Eclectic Medical Journal - Volume 57 - Page 11

    books.google.com/books?id=3QugAAAAMAAJ
    1897 - ‎Read - ‎More editions
    Bad breath arising from retained decomposed secretions in en- 1 arged follicles in diseased tonsils or in other crypts about the pharynx. 5. Bad breath from certain very chronic cases of pulmonary tuberculosis. 6. Bad breath from imperfectly ...
  6. Health Culture - Volume 22 - Page 320

    books.google.com/books?id=tXw3AQAAMAAJ
    1916 - ‎Read - ‎More editions
    Bad breath is caused by a corresponding bad condition somewhere in the body. To get at the cause quickly, let us consider that if a person eats an onion, in about an hour the breath smells of the onion, this continues four to twelve hours and ...
  7. Medical Summary - Volume 24 - Page 174

    books.google.com/books?id=0xgCAAAAYAAJ
    1902 - ‎Read - ‎More editions
    In syphilitic or tuberculous diseases of the larynx or mouth we have offensive odor to the breath. Dyspepsia, either gastric or intestinal, is a very frequent cause of bad breath. In chronic, and even in acute, constipation, we have also bad breath...
  8. Encyclopedia of Health - Volume 2 - Page 112

    books.google.com/books?isbn=0761478477
    2010 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions
    I love food with lots of garlic, but why does it have such a bad effect on my breath? Garlic is a strong-smelling herb. Although it is absorbed in the intestine, it is partly soluble in air. Thus, whenever air passes over tissues containing garlic, the ...
  9. Bad Breath and Body Odor Buster

    books.google.com/books?isbn=0986642118
    Lean Endique - 2010 - ‎No preview
    LEANDRO CRESENCIO ENDIQUE,"Lean" for short, a prolific writer whose every published work has received kudos from the reading public, is the author of the following published and soon-to-to-be-published books, as well as newspaper columns ...

_________________________________-