What the Nose Really Knows

Some findings from research into bad smells, according to Perfumer and Flavorist magazine and the Olfactory Research Fund:

* Our sense of smell is fully developed at birth.

* Subjects exposed to an unpleasant odor while taking a creativity test did worse than those breathing a pleasant fragrance.

* People smelling a pleasant scent recalled more happy memories than did people exposed to a bad smell.

* Patients reported more symptoms of illness while exposed to a rotten-vegetable odor than in the presence of a lemon fragrance.

* After a year, people can still recall smells with 65% accuracy; after only four months, their accuracy in recalling a photograph falls to 50%.

* Anthropologist Margaret Mead said primitive cultures have gone to war because they were incited by each other’s smells.