Steak-Scented Billboard Entices Drivers

In addition to car exhaust and road grime, travelers along Highway 150 in North Carolina can now enjoy the smell of a barbecue thanks to a new billboard. The work of ScentAir, which provides custom scents for businesses, the advertisement for a local grocer emits the smell of charcoal and black pepper over the highway. "Marketing director Murray Dameron said the beef scent was emitted by a high-powered fan at the bottom of the billboard that blows air over cartridges loaded with BBQ fragrance oil. 'It smells like grilled meat with a nice pepper rub on it,' he explained."

Comments

Scooped by NPR???

[Itninja]

NPR covered this a week go. Granted, this is idle, but come on...

Re:A Scentsor?

[Deag]

Some theme park rides have them. There is one in Disney world that has scents as well as 3d and water splashing and stuff.

Re:BBQ?

[Golddess]

I thought Canadian bacon was leaner?

Re:A Scentsor?

[wjousts]

You can't electronically reproduce a smell in a way analogous to a speaker. Olfaction is a chemical sense (along with taste) and requires chemicals to be present in order to be smelt. In other words, any device for producing aromas has to have a reservoir of aroma chemicals already present, in the same way a printer must have a reservoir of ink. Unfortunately, unlike a printer where you can produce a good range of colors from 3 primary colored inks, the same doesn't happen with smell. There is no such thing (as far as anybody has been able to identify) as a primary smell. You can't reproduce the smell of benzaldehyde by mixing other chemicals in any simple straightforward way.

That's not to say you can produce a range of aromas by mixing chemicals, of course you can, it's what perfumers and flavorist do all day; but the palette of chemicals they use for, say, producing steak aromas is both large and quite different than the palette they'd use to produce, say, strawberry aromas. If you wanted a palette that could reasonably cover the entire range of aromas you might smell in everyday life (from steak and strawberries to gasoline and dog shit) it would easily run into several hundred chemicals.

Re:BBQ?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Why are most Americans fat, again?

I don't know about most Americans, but this American is fat because I sit at this computer all day, stuff my face with hot pockets and cheesy poofs, and the only thing close to 'exercise' I get is using the remote control or my smartphone. That's just my assumptions anyway, 'cuz I'm not a doctor.

Re:Bet you didn't think of this

[Hatta]

In severe cases exposure to fragrance can lead to coma and even death.

I'd be interested in some good references for that assertion. A search of PubMed for "fragrance" (also tried "perfume" and "scent") and "coma" yielded nothing of the sort. Searching for "Multiple Chemical Sensitivity MCS" doesn't bring up any useful case studies either. It did however bring up this study(my emphasis):

INTRODUCTION: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is an acquired disorder with recurrent symptoms referable to multiple organ systems. No widely accepted test of physiologic function correlates with symptoms and it has not been recognized as a distinct entity by the scientific community. Few double-blind placebo-controlled studies have been done. The objectives of this study were to test two hypotheses: that patients with MCS can distinguish reliably between solvents and placebo, and that there are significant differences in objective biological and neuropsychological parameters between solvent and placebo exposures. METHODS: Twenty patients with MCS and 17 controls underwent six exposure sessions (solvent mixture and clean air in random order, double-blind) in a challenge chamber. Positive reactions were defined as subjective perception of being exposed to solvents, blood pressure or heart rate change of > or = 10%, rash or clinical signs of hypoxia, or symptom severity rise after exposure. RESULTS: No differences between the groups with regard to sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were found. Cognitive performance was not influenced by solvent exposure, and did not differ between the groups. There was no difference between the groups in serum cortisol levels measured before and after exposures. CONCLUSION: The hypotheses were not confirmed.

As far as modern science can tell us, those with MCS cannot distinguish between solvents and placebo AND there are no significant differences in objective biological and neuropsychological parameters between solvent and placebo exposures.