Olfaction ~ Gold nose ~ how to satisfy different people on the likes !!

Have you observed that some people have the habit of smelling the food, before they eat ! ~ and some like the smell of paint, petrol, graphite, fresh currency, talc, soap, mangoes .. .. .. there are some who would not remove the plastic cover from their cars for some time, the plastic cover from their newly bought mobiles too !!

Olfaction is a chemo-reception that forms the sense of smell. Olfaction has many purposes, such as the detection of hazards, pheremones, and food. It integrates with other senses to form the sense of flavor. Olfaction occurs when odorants bind to specific sites on olfactory receptors located in the nasal cavity.

A sacrificial wolf elaborately adorned with some of the finest Aztec gold ever found and buried more than five centuries ago has come to light in the heart of downtown Mexico City, once home to the Aztec empire's holiest shrines.The quality and number of golden ornaments is highly unusual and includes 22 complete pieces - such as symbol-laden pendants, a nose ring and a chest plate - all made from thin sheets of the precious metal, lead archaeologist Leonardo Lopez told Reuters.  Inside India, a reference to ‘Gold nose’ – one is most likely to think of those golden nose rings worn by women !

Not all smells are likeable and it has perhaps nothing to do with pungency.  What is liked by some may not be liked by somebody else ! ~ nothing philosophical about it.

It turns out the sweet, leathery smell that American consumers crave in their new cars is provoking winces among China's emerging motoring class.Unpleasant interior odours topped the list of complaints by Chinese car buyers for a second straight year in JD Power's China Initial Quality Study, a problem that ranks as the No. 21 grievance among Americans. Chinese consumers griped about bad smell 16 times per 100 vehicles, while buggy voice recognition systems drew the most complaints among US motorists."Smog and indoor pollution have made Chinese consumers paranoid about smells in new cars, and thus the problem is actually exaggerated," Jeff Cai, general manager of auto product and quality at JD Power China, said during an interview Thursday in Beijing. "On the other hand, there's a group of consumers in Europe and US who are so fond of it that they will buy new car smell spray to keep it as long as possible."

Automakers will be under increasing pressure to cater to Chinese preferences, which are in some cases becoming global standards. China surpassed the US to become the world's biggest auto market in 2009. More new vehicles were sold in China during the first six months of this year than in the US the year the nation was surpassed as the No. 1 market.The Chinese government is considering whether to make mandatory a set of recommended vehicle interior air quality standards that have been effective since 2012. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. has been promoting an in-cabin air-filtration system that purports to all but eliminate PM2.5 particulates in two hours.

Among China's motorists, popular ways of getting rid of that new car smell include using bags of activated carbon, lemon, grapefruit or orange peels, and a mix of water with vinegar. Car washes also offer "ozone sterilisation" to eliminate toxins.American buyers, on the other hand, have been consistent in taking issue with voice recognition, Bluetooth and connectivity systems in JD Power's recent US initial quality surveys, which the researcher has conducted annually the last 30 years.

While Western drivers like the "new car" smell fresh off the production line, Chinese would rather their cars didn't smell of anything - a cultural divide that's testing car makers seeking an edge to revive sales in the world's biggest auto market.At Ford, for example, 18 smell assessors - dubbed "golden noses" - at its research plant outside the eastern city of Nanjing test the smell of each material that goes inside a Ford car to be sold in China and around Asia.The China smell test isn't unique, but illustrates the lengths automakers go to to attract buyers in markets where consumer attitudes vary widely.

The smell assessors at Ford, whose China sales are down 7 per cent this year, carry out 300 tests a year, a third more than their counterparts in Europe. They rate the odour of all materials used in a car from "not perceptible" to "extremely disturbing".Pungent materials - from carpets to seat covers and steering wheels - are noted as smelling of anything from "burnt tyre" and "bad meat" to "moth balls" or "dirty socks". Some are sent back to the supplier.Seats for Ford cars in China are stored in perforated cloth bags to keep them ventilated before being installed, as opposed to plastic wrapping in other markets where consumers are less concerned about chemical smells.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

24^th July 2017.