Cherrywood residents weren't slow off the mark on odour control facility issue

Cherrywood residents weren't slow off the mark on odour control facility issue

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To the editor:

Re: 'Residents need to stay up to date on local issues', Karem Allen letter, News Advertiser, Jan. 7.

Karem Allen is mistaken in suggesting Cherrywood residents haven't stayed in touch with local issues, specifically the massive raw sewage vent pipe planned for their neighbourhood.

The facility will filter and release odour from millions of litres of untreated sewage - all from York Region - before it reaches the treatment plant in south Pickering. Area residents have every right to object and will continue to do so. Given the prevailing wind direction, the rest of Pickering and Ajax might also have concerns.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the consultants hired by York Region to inform the public and solicit comments have done an imperfect job. They sent meeting notices to residents in sealed, plain, un-addressed envelopes. Most were discarded unopened. Since the first few residents showed up at a meeting at Pine Ridge Secondary School and began asking questions, the information from those consultants has been somewhat vague and occasionally contradictory. A cynic might think they weren't really trying to engage the community in informed discussion.

Cherrywood residents have been quick and effective in raising awareness. That their efforts were only reported recently doesn't mean they've been disinterested or lazy. Mrs. Allen might take her own advice and become informed before she criticizes.

Don Harvey

Pickering

Study finds that odours can alter gene expression in an olfactory neurone

New research from University of California, Davis, shows why a species of tiny worm can learn to ignore an odour - information that could have implications for how human memories are formed.

Scientists have known for decades that sensory neurones - nerves in places like our fingers, ears and eyes - begin the complex task of processing sights, sounds and other stimuli before forwarding the job to the body's mainframe computer: the brain. But just how these neurones accomplish their task has not been well understood.

Now researchers at UC Davis have made a startling discovery: that in olfactory neurones, odour bypasses the normal regulatory pathways in the nucleus and instead boosts synthesis of a protein by acting on RNA, the molecular messengers that typically carry instructions from DNA in the nucleus to protein-building mechanisms in the cell.

'What is unique about this study is that it provides the first evidence that a chemical in our environment changes gene expression in its own, very specific way within a sensory organ,' explained Noelle L'Etoile, the study's principal investigator and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at UC Davis's Centre for Neuroscience. 'This implicates the real importance of RNA in controlling when proteins are made, and shows that the environment can actually change what RNA does.'

Probing deep into the molecular pathways of a microscopic worm called C. elegans, L'Etoile and co-author Julia Kaye, a postdoctoral researcher at the centre, found that prolonged exposure to an odour boosts production of a protein that curbs the worm's response to the smell, and that this activity happens very close to the area where the smell enters the neurone. Their study appears in the 15 January issue of the journal Neuron.

The regulatory protein guiding this response is also found in an important region of memory formation in the mammalian brain, L'Etoile explained. 'So this work could lead to discoveries about the role these proteins play in memory and higher order learning in humans,' she said.

To study the molecular basis of smell, the researchers used a population of C. elegans with a mutation that blocks the worms' normal ability to ignore odours that are not linked to food. L'Etoile had earlier found that this mutation occurs in a region of RNA that regulates the expression, or synthesis, of a protein called PKG.

In the new study, they found that RNA in sensory neurones of the defective worms no longer binds to Pumilio proteins, regulatory molecules found in a diversity of species from yeast to humans. This led to their discovery that when normal worms are exposed to the odour of butanone with no food link, a Pumilio protein in the olfactory neurone ratchets up production of PKG, prompting the creatures to eventually lose interest in the smell. The discovery holds an additional, new twist, L'Etoile added: an exciting role reversal for Pumilio proteins, which until now have only been known to suppress protein synthesis.

Source: University of California - Davis

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Cat breath, fresh futons and a grandmother's house among the odours catalogued on website

• Justin McCurry in Tokyo
  
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 January 2009 13.20 GMT
• Article history

Ranked for rankness: Cow dung, cat breath and socks. Photograph: Stephen Shaver/EPA

Worried that a trip to Japan might be ruined by the stench of feline halitosis? Convinced that a weekend break in Paris will be all the more memorable for a sniff of herbal soap? Time, then, to consider membership of the Smell Club.

The club's website (Japanese language), is the brainchild of a Japanese firm with an overdeveloped interest in all things nasal, and tags different odours around the world, pinpointing them on a map.

Since its launch last month, the site has gathered more than 160 odours in 68 locations, submitted by 200 members who call themselves "smellists".

The smells submitted so far range from the decidedly fetid – cow dung and old socks – to the quirky, including freshly aired futons and the steam from a rice cooker.

All users have to do is click on a balloon tag on the map or enter a keyword to reveal vital data, such as when best to inhale – or avoid – a particular smell and where to encounter it. The smells are ranked in order of pungency, from light to extra bold.

The people of Fujisawa, south-east of Tokyo, may be surprised to discover that part of their town, which isn't known for cattle farming, is redolent of the "the toasty odour of cow dung".

"We would much prefer to be known for the salty sea breeze," said one resident of the surfing town.

Also best avoided is nearby Kamakura, Japan's ancient capital, where the aroma of temple incense now apparently mingles with that of the bad breath of cats.

The site's operators say they are working on its one obvious weakness: the ability to verify the smellists' claims.

"All that is missing on the web is a smelling function," the spokeswoman Kayo Matsubara told the Associated Press. "That's our next challenge."

Even if that's not possible, the listed smells are eclectic enough to elicit nods of recognition.

One contributor, identified only as Nakkuru, says the smell of her grandmother's house puts her at ease, while Namezaemon declares himself thrilled by a passing woman's pheromones.

Smelly Okada's idea of nasal nirvana, meanwhile, is the aroma of a freshly unsheathed Apple computer.

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