About
Accounts
Groups
Friends
-
Loading…Abad 21 minutes ago -
Loading…resocjalizator 1 day ago -
Loading…Pumpkineer 1 day ago -
Loading…Aluslaw 2 days ago -
Loading…pajlot 2 days ago -
Loading…radmen about 11 hours ago -
Loading…ivyl 24 minutes ago
Click here to check if anything new just came in.
September 14 2010
“— Biology News: A 'metallic' smell is just body odourWhy does metal smell? Chemists have found a surprising answer: it doesn't.
After you've grasped an iron railing, a door handle or a piece of steel cutlery, your hand often gives off what seems to be a metallic odour. But Dietmar Glindemann of the University of Leipzig, Germany, and his co-workers say that you're not smelling the metal at all.
They have found that the musty odour comes from chemical compounds in your skin, which are transformed in an instant by the touch of iron. They report the results in the international edition of Angewandte Chemie.
Copper has a similar effect, accounting for the metallic smell created by handling coins made of copper alloys. "When a shopkeeper hands you a coin," says Glindemann, "you're smelling his body odour."
The smelly reactions induced by these metals create "the sensory illusion that it is the 'metal in itself' that we smell right after touching it", the researchers say. In other words, a 'metallic' smell is only deemed to be so by association.
”
AluslawJuly 21 2010
Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
