“Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” Anthony Bourdain, chef, journalist, travel documentarian certainly had a way with words. Here he was describing the...
In November 2019, a study published in Scientific Reports showed a fascinating defense mechanism possessed by a certain variety of sweet potato named TN 57, which was known to be much more...
It is quite amazing how very small changes in an odourant’s chemical structure can radically change our perception of its scent. For example, octanol, a synthetic compound used in perfumes and...
Both frankincense and myrrh are natural exudates of certain trees found in the Middle East. When the bark is injured, a sap containing a variety of natural fungicides and bactericides oozes out and...
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...
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...
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