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Cloning the Smell of the Sea

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the more-than-just-dead-fish dept.

An anonymous reader wrote in with an article that opens: "Scientists from the University of East Anglia have discovered exactly what makes the seaside smell like the seaside — and bottled it. The age-old mystery was unlocked thanks to some novel bacteria plucked from the North Norfolk coast." The responsible substance, dimethyl sulfide, in addition to smelling like the coast, also acts as a homing scent for birds looking to feast on plankton.

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Oh sure, by Smuffe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    this is great NOW, but what about ten years from now when some sharp smell expert tries do duplicate the smell of fifty engineers in cubicles and it's YOUR socks they want?

  2. Older algae-derived sea scent - Calone by jenik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One 'marine' scent has been around for a while and is heavily used in common fragrances - Calone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calone

  3. Chip shops! by DaveCar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Something about sea air makes fish and chips particularly appealing. Perhaps landlocked chip shops could blast out some synthetic sea air and make passers-by particularly hungry?

  4. Re:Smell of the sea? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    first thing i thought of when i saw the headline :) doesnt sound like an ideal perfume though:
    "But we were misled, twice over. Firstly because that distinctive smell is not ozone, it is dimethyl sulphide. And secondly, because inhaling it is not necessarily good for you."
    Another thing, from TFA:

    DMS is also a remarkably effective food marker for ocean-going birds such as shearwaters and petrels. It acts as a homing scent like Brussels sprouts at the Christmas dinner table! - and the birds sniff out their plankton food in the lonely oceans at astonishingly low concentrations.
    Could using it in a cologne lead to a real live production of Hitchcock's The Birds ?

    The director also reportedly drew inspiration from a 1961 incident in which seabirds attacked the terrified residents of Monterey Bay. Recent research has shown that the birds were suffering the effects of ingesting contaminated plankton, but in 1961, the then-inexplicable "revolt of the birds" helped Hitchcock devise the simple but horrifying "what if" premise.

    If so it might have some uses, anonymously given of course. The perfect gift for that deserving person.