ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2020
Human odour thresholds are tuned to atmospheric chemical lifetimes.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Olfaction in fruit flies (Tephritidae) balances detection and discrimination of host fruits.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Satellite Observations of Atmospheric Ammonia Inequalities Associated with Industrialized Swine Facilities in Eastern North Carolina.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Microalgae as a potential raw material for plant-based seafood alternatives: A comprehensive review.Food science & nutrition · 2024Review
- Screening of Optimal Konjac Glucomannan-Protein Composite Gel Formulations to Mimic the Texture and Appearance of Tripe.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Nature and human well-being: The olfactory pathway.Science advances · 2024Review
- The behavioral sensitivity of mice to acyclic, monocyclic, and bicyclic monoterpenes.PloS one · 2024Article
- Review
- Olfaction in patients with Parkinson's disease: a new threshold test analysis through turning points trajectories.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2021Article
- Human olfactory communication: current challenges and future prospects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Interdisciplinary challenges for elucidating human olfactory attractiveness.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
In this study, the odour thresholds (OT) and atmospheric lifetimes (AL) were compared for a suite of volatile organic compounds. It was found that odour threshold, as determined by the triangle bag method, correlated surprisingly well with atmospheric lifetime for a given chemical family. Molecules with short atmospheric lifetimes with respect to the primary atmospheric oxidant OH tend to be more sensitively detected by the human nose. Overall the correlation of odour threshold with atmospheric lifetime was better than with mass and vapour pressure. Several outliers from the correlations for particular chemical families were examined in detail. For example, diacetyl was an outlier in the ketone dataset that fitted the trend when its more important photolysis lifetime was included; and similarly, the relatively low odour threshold of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) was interpreted in terms of uptake by vegetation. The OT/AL relationship suggests that OH rate constants can be used as a first-order estimate for odour thresholds (and
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