2026 1+2

Olfactory perception is shaped not only by the physical properties of odorants but also by prior experience and perceptual prominence. Odor familiarity and salience are known to modulate neural responses; however, how these factors interact to shape odor processing in the human brain remains poorly understood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the combined effects of odor familiarity and perceptual salience on neural activation and brain–behavior relationships during olfactory perception. Sixty-three healthy young women participated in a 2 × 2 factorial fMRI experiment manipulating odor familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) and salience (low vs. high). Odors were delivered birhinally using a computer-controlled olfactometer while participants passively perceived the stimuli and subsequently rated perceived odor intensity and odor-evoked memory intensity. Whole-brain analyses and region-of-interest approaches focused on canonical olfactory, limbic, and memory-related regions. All odor conditions elicited robust activation across primary olfactory, limbic, and associative cortices. Low-salience familiar odors preferentially engaged medial temporal and orbitofrontal regions, whereas low-salience unfamiliar odors recruited fronto-parietal and attentional networks, suggesting greater evaluative processing in the absence of established odor representations. High-salience odors, irrespective of familiarity, produced more widespread and bilateral activation patterns consistent with stronger bottom-up sensory drive. Critically, significant brain–behavior relationships emerged only for familiar odors presented at low salience, where subjective memory intensity was negatively correlated with parahippocampal activation, indicating greater reliance on memory-based representations under conditions of weak sensory input. These findings demonstrate that odor familiarity and salience interact nonlinearly to shape neural processing, identifying low-salience familiar odors as a distinct perceptual state in which top-down memory mechanisms exert a stronger influence on olfactory perception.

Think about the historical moments you’ve learned about over the course of your life — scenes shaped by textbook descriptions, famous photographs, paintings, or old newsreels. Some historical events left tangible evidence behind: documents, tools, clothing, buildings, and personal objects that help anchor those happenings in the real world. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of history’s turning points were even documented with sound, preserved on scratchy recordings or early film. But there’s one sense that we rarely consider when talking about the past: what history smelled like. It’s not something most of us have considered because it’s not usually possible to bottle or archive an odor from the past. Still, the historical moments that we know so much else about had distinct smells shaped by their environment. When we pause to imagine the smell of pivotal events, history becomes ...Read More

The growing popularity of plant-based proteins, particularly pea protein, is driven by health benefits and sustainability. However, despite the increasing demand, undesirable sensory attributes hind...

Off-putting smells can make even the healthiest of foods unpalatable. In a new study, researchers have developed a way to remove unpleasant aromas from plant-based proteins to make them smell more appealing. They did so by designing a two-step fermentation process to counter the odors that typically form during cultivation and extraction.

This study quantitatively evaluated how palmitic acid (PA) and ethyl palmitate (EP) affect the retronasal persistence of fruity esters in wine. The mo…

AI is not a rupture in history, but a continuation of intelligence emerging where information becomes systematically arranged.

Flavor reflects taste, olfactory, and oral texture inputs, and can be influenced by the sight of food, by cognitive descriptions, and by attention. Th…

New research suggests the astringent sensation caused by flavanols could act as a direct signal to the brain, triggering effects similar to a mild workout for the nervous system. In mouse experiments, flavanol intake boosted activity, curiosity, learning, and memory—despite these compounds barely entering the bloodstream. The key appears to be sensory stimulation: the taste itself activates brain pathways linked to attention, motivation, and stress response, lighting up regions involved in arousal and memory.

We don’t have a single verb to express smelling something nice. Welsh and Croatian, by contrast, are never caught short when something fragrant gets right up your nose, writes Guardian columnist Adrian Chiles

Tastepoint by IFF has identified ten flavors predicted to shape F&B innovation throughout 2026. The company’s flavor trend predictions reflect a vibrant mix of influences, from nostalgia-driven classics to global favorites and bold new combinations. The top ten flavors are forecast to gather pace in the US, showing up in grocery products, foodservice, restaurants, retail, and other food and drink categories over the year.

ADM has released its full-year earnings report for 2025, revealing that Nutrition, which includes flavors and specialty ingredients, was the company’s only growth segment. Full-year revenues fell to US$80.3 billion from US$85.5 billion, total segment operating profit dropped 23% to US$3.24 billion, and adjusted earnings per share came in at US$3.43 (down 28%). The damage was sharpest in Crushing (the process of processing oilseeds, such as soybeans, to extract vegetable oil and protein meal), where operating profit collapsed 81% to US$159 million from US$844 million a year earlier, driven by compressed margins tied to prolonged US biofuel policy uncertainty.

What began as an exciting gen Z food trend has become ubiquitous. Is the bubble about to burst under the weight of ‘fake’ honey and cheap, mass-produced knock-offs?

Watermelon-flavored candies and other foods rarely taste like the real thing. But why exactly is that? It's all about our abilities to recreate the flavor.

The French flavors and fragrances house has acquired the Belgian biotechnology company ChemoSensoryx Biosciences. With this acquisition, Mane intends to strengthen innovation capabilities. Indeed, ChemoSensoryx Biosciences has developed a cutting-edge expertise in molecular mechanism of chemosensory perception mediated by olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal receptors. This acquisition will allow Mane to deepen its scientific understanding of how smells, tastes, and sensations like...

Smell is one of the most ancient human senses and yet one of the least explored in the digital world. In 2026, digital olfaction is entering a new phase. It is no longer experimental or speculative. I

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is a hub for advanced scientific research, excellence in education, and technological innovation, playing a pivotal role in addressing major societal challenges at local, national, and European levels.

Food aromas arise from complex combinations of odorants, yet how these combinations are organized across foods to define aroma identity remains unclear. Decoding this “aroma code” could help bridge the sensory gap between traditional foods and sustainable alternatives, which often struggle with off-notes or to replicate consumer-expected flavor profiles. Here we present KFO-Atlas, a molecular atlas of 896 key food odorants curated from 2,282 food aroma formulations. Analysis shows that food aromas are built from sparse and structured sets of odorants. Plant-derived foods span a broad and diverse aroma space, whereas animal-derived foods tend to exhibit more similar odorant sets. In specific cases, distinct plant- and animal-based foods converge on similar odorant compositions through shared reaction pathways. Building on these insights, we develop a generative AI model that produces category-targeted aroma formulations and validate its outputs by blinded human sensory evaluation. As a proof of principle, the model reconstructs meat-like aromas using exclusively plant-derived odorants, demonstrating a data-driven route to address sensory bottlenecks in sustainable food products. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Ministry of Education, Singapore, under the Academic Research Fund Tier 1, A-8003718-00-00 NUS IT, NUSREC-HPC-00001

An amazing guide to olfactory nerve function (CN I). Learn how this critical nerve works and provides your sense of smell.

Using chemistry, archival records and AI, scientists are reviving the aromas of old libraries, mummies and battlefields

Beneath fancy perfumes and deodorants, our food choices may be quietly shaping our natural scent in unexpected ways

Unexpected combinations and globally-inspired ingredients are defining food and beverage innovation as brands cater to a rise in adventurous eating.

A bitter taste has always been considered a warning signal, devoted to protecting us from ingesting potentially harmful substances. But bitter taste receptors can apparently do much more than just evaluate the taste of food. A recent study by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich now shows that certain human bitter taste receptors also respond to steroid hormones. They could therefore play a previously underestimated role in physiological processes.

About this Opportunity As global demand for protein continues to rise, this funding opportunity can help diversify protein sources, strengthen the sustainability of food and agriculture supply chains and contribute to a safer, more resilient global food system. Improving the functionality and flavor of plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins can increase consumer acceptance, open new markets…

This study aimed to analyze the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for different rice aroma types using sensory evaluation, headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS), and gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) techniques, and to explore the material basis for the flavor differences. Based on the sensory evaluation results, rice aroma was categorized into three types, distinguished by their unique aroma compounds. Type A was characterized by a prominent sweet, popcorn aroma, type B by a more prominent cereal and starchy flavor, and type C by a more complex aroma. Untargeted metabolomics analysis using HS-SPME-GC-MS identified and characterized 74 volatile compounds. A comparison of A versus B versus C revealed 8 key aroma compounds, primarily alkanes, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, and heterocyclic compounds. (E)-2-Octenal, 6-Undecanone, 2-Acetyl-1h-pyrrole, and P-menthan-1-ol in type A gave it a better sweet aroma, Dodecane, 2,6,10-trimethyl-, 1-Octen-3-one, and 2-Methyldecane in type B gave it a better starchy and cereal flavor. 2-Acetyl-1h-pyrrole, Heptacosane, and 1-Propanol in type C contributed to a complex aroma. GC-IMS analysis showed that the fingerprints of rice with different aroma types were significantly different. The VOCs of aroma type A contained (+)-limonene, 2-methylpyrazine, 2-pentanone, ethyl butanoate, n-pentanal, styrene, 1-butanol, 3-methyl-, acetate, 1-hexanal, 1-pentanol, and 2-heptanone, which gave it a better sweet aroma. The VOCs of aroma type C contained 1-octen-3-ol, 2,6-dimethyl pyrazine, 2-acetylpyridine, and ethyl hexanoate, which gave it a better complex aroma.

Cultivated pufferfish (Takifugu rubripes) is a valuable sustainable source of nutritious and tasty food. The Sensomics approach was applied to elucidate the impact of cooking on the aroma of steamed and roasted pufferfish (STR, RTR) by solvent-assisted flavor evaporation, identification, quantitation, aroma recombination, and omission studies. Thirty-five odor-active compounds were characterized by flavor dilution factors of 4 to 2048. The concentrations of selected odorants ranged from 0.06 to 95653 μg/kg. Trimethylamine, 2,3-pentanedione, acetoin, (Z)-4-heptenal, 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, nonanal, 2-ethyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazine, 2,3-diethyl-5-methylpyrazine, (E)-2-nonenal, (E,Z)-2,6-nonadienal, 2-acetylthiazole, 2-acetyl-2-thiazoline, 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone, and 4-hydroxy-5-methyl-3(2H)-furanone contributed to the aroma of STR and RTR, while 2- and 3-methylbutanal and dimethyl disulfide were more pronounced in the RTR aroma. Compared with STR, higher amounts of trimethylamine, (Z)-4-heptenal, and Maillard-derived odorants like 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone and ethyl-substituted pyrazines contributed to the stronger fishy and caramel-like/roasted notes of RTR, respectively. Cooking at high temperatures and prolonged time could promote the generation of pleasant sensorial attributes of pufferfish.

Adding the right seasoning or dressing to your food can help your body absorb more vitamins and minerals, according to research.

The experts help us break down 10 orange varieties and the best ways to use them.

Civil war in Sudan disrupts acacia gum production, impacting global supply. Despite challenges, major suppliers like Alland & Robert and Nexira aim to maintain sourcing, emphasizing economic stability and ethical practices. Manufacturers explore alternatives as supply chain issues persist.

New research suggests humans lost vitamin C production 60 million years ago as a defense against parasitic infections, not evolutionarily neutral.