[link] Nostalgic Noses

One of the reasons why I have been so fascinated by the sense of smell is the power to transport us back in time, having a specific event flashes right in front of me only from one whiff of a scent.

In this article by Scientific American, they scientifically explain how smells are strongly associated with important memories, like fresh-baked cookies and Christmas.

By looking at the structure of the brain, researchers have found that olfactory (smell) information takes a different path through the brain than input from the other senses. Most sensory information has to first go through a region called the thalamus before being interpreted by the other specialized parts of the brain. The thalamus receives input from many sources and then directs it to the right part of the brain. Scientists often consider this the step when a person becomes consciously aware of something.

When it comes to smells, the olfactory information actually passes through the olfactory memory and processing parts of the brain first. That means that we are actually processing the content and memory of a smell before we are consciously figuring out what that smell is.

This smell center of the brain, the olfactory cortex, is also strongly connected with two other areas of the brain: the limbic system and the amygdala. Both of these areas play strong roles in the emotional components of how memories are created and retrieved.

Read the full article: It’s Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas: The Neuroscience of Our Nostalgia

Merry Christmas!

[smell in a song] Goldroom - Fifteen (feat. Chela)

[0:38]

It’s been a long time, wondering why
the summer smells like sin and wonder

[link] Reel Fish Hide From Predators By Smelling Like Coral

Humans might not consider smells as important as sights or sounds, but in animals, they still highly use smells to communicate with each other. And for some animals, hiding your appearance is useless if their predators can still smell them.

photo by atomicshark, CC BY-NC-SA

So if a chameleon or stick insect disguise themselves as leaves or branches, harlequin filefish disguise themselves to smell like coral, according to a paper published by the Royal Society.

One way this could happen is via the diet: odour producing chemicals from the food transferred to the animal that causes their smells to match

You are what you eat, and for filefish or caterpillars, this can be a good advantage.

Read the full article here: Reef fish can even smell like coral as they seek to evade predators

[link] Aromajoin: The Resurrection of Smell-O-Vision?

When I was a little I used to watch an American cooking TV programme called "Wok With Yan" and I remember that at that time I wished that I could smell his cooking as he stirred all those deliciously-looking ingredients in his wok. I even went closer to the TV set and sniff the speakers, imagining that the smells would have been emitted from there.

And it seems that I am not alone.

South Korean entrepreneur Dong Wook Kim is developing a startup technology called "Aromajoin", a smell projection that accompany video. Aromajoin has "aroma shooters", scent cartridges of smell molecules. These cartridges can spray smells for three seconds, and they are up for 45,000 uses.

Aroma Shooters (photo from Tech in Asia)

These Aroma Shooters can also mix up to six different scents, and the smells don't really linger after they're triggered - sounds awesome, right?

So maybe this is the resurrection time for Smell-o-Vision, and one day I can go to the cinemas and sniff scents that are sprayed from the Aroma Shooters strapped to our seats. It said that they can shoot about 60-80 cm range, so they can be used for personal uses too, like telly and installation videos in museums.

I wish the best of luck for Mr. Kim, and I really like his ultimate goal as quoted in this article by Tech in Asia.

Media is only images and sound, maybe slightly tactile like vibration on a smartphone. We want to change media. We want to watch TV with an accompanying smell. We want computers and smartphones to provide aroma feedback.

Read the full articles here:
TV set that emits smells? This startup has what it takes to make it happen
http://www.popsci.com/startup-makes-2550-scent-emitting-televisions

[smell in a song] Marc Almond - The Dancing Marquis

chorus:
So smother me in Ambergris
Make a perfume out of me
Bergamot and Veltiver
Put your face in my bouquet
Inhale me
The dancing marquis

[link] Wearable Whiskey

Heriot Watt University's School of Textiles and Design has developed a "smart fabric" that will give off a whiskey scent.

The fabric was developed for Harris Tweed Hebrides and Johnnie Walker Black Label and smells of "rich malt, golden vanilla, red fruit, and dark chocolate tones," according to the whisky producer.

The scent is called Aqua Alba and has been designed to replicate aromas released from a glass of whisky, known as the nose of the liquid.

Read the full article: Smells like tweed spirit: Fabric gives off whisky scent.

[from BBC, via Now Smell This]

In the mean time, I am wondering what edible smell should my clothes have.. perhaps a bowl of spinach soup. You?

[link] Thai Tasting Robot

In a country known for their tasty cuisine, a group of scientists in Thailand has developed a device which they hope can tell the authenticity of a Thai dish.

It is called "e-Delicious" and it has nine sensors that serve as the nose and tongue of the device.

Read the full article on BBC here: Thai tasting robot tastes for authenticity

[link] How To Make Homemade Glycerin Soap

Hello Natural has shared an easy tutorial to make a homemade glycerin soap with herbs and spices here. I definitely have to try this one! :-)

(via Make)

[link] cancelling pungent smells

A couple of researchers have claimed that they can produce a mixture that can cancel the pungent smells, or olfactory white - equivalent to white noise and white light.

Brothers Kush and Lav Varshney said that they have created a mathematical model that predicts how humans perceive the smell of a particular substance based on its physical and chemical properties, by matching a database of compounds to another of perceived smells.

Theoretically, canceling smells with smells should work because human perception of smell is synthetic, not analytic. That means that when human brains encounter multiple odors, they don't perceive them as a weighted mix. So it's not like, "Oh hey, this is 50 percent dairy compounds, plus 48 percent mild squash, plus two percent tree bark." Instead, human brains mush everything together: Smells like pumpkin pie!

To cancel out a smell, they calculate which compounds provide the opposite ratings, giving a zero score across the board. Previous research has shown that an equal blend of around 30 compounds creates "white smell".

Read the full articles here:
White noise for your nose cancels pungent aromas at New Scientist, and
How To Make 'Noise-Cancelling Headphones" For Your Nose" at Popular Science

Nusantara International Tea Festival

The Tea Festival was actually not a part of the KTCF 2014, but I was so excited that the two events took place at the same time so I could just drop by and drink some tea. Well actually, drink a lot of tea - I drank too much tea that day that I could not sleep until the next morning.

Anyway, I was just so excited to know that there was finally a tea festival in the middle of this coffee-dominated era. I particularly liked the booth of Oza Tea House, a new tea parlour in Bandung. The booth displayed all sorts of tea, from White Silver Needle Tea to Earl Grey to Vanilla. I could even smell most of the different kinds of tea, and I really loved their premium tea - the white silver needle tea (which has a very soft, soothing smell) and the Grey Dragon (with a rich, fresh fruity smell). I was sort on cash unfortunately, so I could only buy the white tea ;-)

And all of their products were nicely packed like foreign tea packages. The premium teas were even nicer - they were put in small vacuumed bottles so you were sure that the smells and freshness did not leave the tea leaves.

Titing and I also made a visit to the "Incredible India" booth, where the Tea Board of India served three kinds of tea: Darjeeling, Nilgiri, and Assam, all based on the regions they came from. The Assam tea was probably the most special, because it was planted on the low lands, near sea level, instead of the hills like the two other teas. It also had a rather stronger flavour.

We also went to had a look at the other booths, where we had a look at the Chrysanthemum buds and matcha powder, and later bought a bottle of cold Chrysanthemum tea to refresh ourselves.

Last but not least, surely I had to take a photo with this awesome quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky!

"I say let the world go to hell,
But I should always have my tea"

22.06.2014

[smell in music] Frankie Goes to Hollywood

According to this website, Paul Rutherford was taken as a member of Frankie Goes to Hollywood only "for the smell of it".

[link] Octopus's Olfaction for Reproduction

According to a new research, the octopus's olfactory system might have a strong role to the octopus's reproduction.

“They possess a well developed olfactory organ, but to date almost nothing is known” about how it works, write the authors of a new review paper on the topic, published online earlier this month in General and Comparative Endocrinology.

For most of its short life, an octopus focuses on getting food—and turning that food into body mass. Only in the last months (or in some cases possibly weeks or years), does an octopus’s interest turn to love—or reproduction, at least. Recent research suggests that somehow the olfactory organs are partly responsible in this switch from growing to reproduction. As it happens, the olfactory lobe in the octopus’s central nervous system is located near the optic gland, which as been implicated in sexual maturation—as well as the strange but inevitable phenomenon of post-reproduction rapid senescence.

[link] The Sweet Smell of Shops

Scents have been often used to attract customers, and a recent study from the International journal of Marketing Studies shows that customers "felt greater pleasure and stimulation, expressed intention to revisit the store and spent more in a scented environment than in an unscented one."

“Smell is one of the most unique of human senses,” said Jennifer Dublino, vice president of development at ScentWorld Events, the scent marketing industry’s US-based trade group. “Scent enters the limbic system [of the brain] and bypasses all of the cognitive and logical thought processes and goes directly to the emotional and memory areas of the brain. There’s an instant effect on the customer.”

According to Dublino, the global scent marketing industry is growing at a rate of 15% per year. Asia is the fastest-growing market, with Latin America and the Middle East following closely behind.

Read the full article here: Why it matters if stores smell delicious

Nose Knows What the Mind Tells It

I have been suffering from asthma for the last couple of years, and this article is a bad news for me.

According to a new study by Cristina Jaén and Pamela Dalton on the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, when people with asthma think they're smelling something obnoxious, their airways become inflamed, even when the odour is harmless.

Read the full article here: Nose Knows What the Mind Tells It

[SmellQuote] from Person of Interest, "Allegiance"

"Sense of smell is often the most neglected of the five senses, 
and one which machines can't replicate. 
At least, not yet."

The Ambassador Likes to Smell Books Too! ;-)

Last month I was invited to an alumni dinner with the Ambassador of the Netherlands Tjeerd de Zwaan, on the occasion of the visit of the Rector Magnificus of Universiteit Leiden Professor Carel Stolker and his colleagues.

During the dinner me with some friends sat in the same table with the Ambassador himself, alongside the Head of NESO Marvin Bakker and Scientific Director of the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Professor Gerard Persoon.

We stumbled upon a topic on tablets replacing real books, and I said to the Ambassador that one thing I do not like about reading digital books on tablets is the lack of book smells, because I like to smell books. Surprisingly, he said that he likes to smell books too! ;-)

And here's us taking a photo with the friendly Mr. Zwaan.

Klinik Kopi

Titing is a coffee fan so she was super excited when Mbak Mirna and Mas Jaya asked us to go to Klinik Kopi (Coffee Clinic) in the north of Yogyakarta.

We went there by taxi, and we finally found the 'clinic' inside an alley, hidden from the busy roads. But it was a nice two-storey building, and when we entered the parking lot mbak Mirna called us from the second floor.

Mbak Mirna and Mas Jaya came with nyitmomo, who could not stop running around and greeting everyone she met. They seemed to be regular customers, who knew each other pretty well.

It was called “coffee clinic” because coffee drinkers were treated like patients - they were asked what sort of coffee they like (acidity, roasting level, etc) and the 'doctor' would give them what kind of coffee they need. The doctor, mas Pepeng, is super-coffee-enthusiast who has travelled across the country to collect the country's coffee diversity. He cooperated with local farmers and local coffee makers to get the finest of their coffee.

When he found out that I don’t drink coffee, he jokingly asked me to leave the clinic xD

That evening the doctor did not feel very well (he got a flu) so he planned to close earlier than scheduled. Luckily Titing and I could make it to the clinic before it closed. Titing had a double espresso of Nagari Lasi, while I had the half espresso (or I actually don't know what it was called, I think it was just a regular ‘light’ coffee) of the same coffee. I couldn't finish mine but it sure was a nice-smelling coffee! :-p

Titing bought a pack of coffee Sindoro and she was very happy - she couldn't wait to share her experience with her fellow coffee lovers.

helmet wash, with perfumes

Saw this banner in Yogyakarta during my visit for the Supper Snapshots exhibition early this month.

It says:
Fortune, Helmet Spa
Helmet wash, from Rp7,000 - Rp15,000
Various perfumes available:

• Softly
• Macho
• Flirty
• Extreme

sniffing scotch tapes

Apart from sniffing books,there is another smell that I really like in bookshops: scotch tapes.

(thanks Rara for the photo!)

me and moleskine

I always like Moleskine notebooks - they're very good to write on, they're sturdy, and they smell good.

Well at least those were my impression when I used to buy moleskine in the Netherlands. However, I was rather disappointed to know that the Moleskine notebooks in Indonesia do not have the same good smell as those in the Netherlands. The softcover notebook which I used to buy had the strong, leather smell that I really liked. But not here. I will make further 'research' on that one later. Now I am just happy to have another moleskine notebook.

Thanks to Titing for the photo! :-)

book-sniffer

I secretly sniff books in book shops ;-)

My favourite section was the Classics, especially those by Wordsworth. I believe they have the best book smells, which explained my dozens of Wordsworth books at home.








thanks to Maarten for the photos!