First Nerve

Get It While It’s Hot!

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 20:06:00 +0000

Photo credit: Třinecké železárny

Since you found your way here, you might want to know that all my new material is posted on Substack.

Head over there for my latest hot takes on the science of smell.

Better yet, sign up to receive my new posts by email as soon as they go up!

Here is some of what you've been missing recently:

Olfactory Science Low on the Leaderboard: And Team USA is not exactly killing it

The Great and Powerful Os(mo): Pay no attention to the human sensory panelists behind the AI

Smell and Emotion: The Deep Thoughts of Rachel Herz: Who needs AI slop when you can have genuine slop?

Of Space, Time, and Scent: The experience of smell in the Digital Age

The Third Rule of FirstNerve

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 04:03:00 +0000

The third rule of FirstNerve is—follow the links for the freshest content.

Beaming Radio into the Nose: Seoul music at 2.45 GHz

Olfactory Loss and Alzheimer’s Disease: Commercialized smell testing could pay off big time.

OUT: Human Pheromones, IN: Whole Body Odor / Smell scientists get their noses out of the armpit

Decoding Female Axillary Odor: The Al Bundy theory of human pheromones

Who’s Talking About Smelling? The current crop of perfume commentators

Fat or Tasteless? A possible sensory link to Ozempic face

Eustace Tilley Takes a Sniff: The Feminization of Smell Culture

Is AI About to Revolutionize Fragrance? Or are we living in Dot Com Bubble 2.0?

Blowing Smoke: NPR and the Smell of Weed- Cutting through media blather

Novelists and the Nose: Scented fiction in the 21st century

Sniffing Mummies for Science: And other scents from the ancient world

Hungry for New Content?

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 19:20:00 +0000

Here’s what’s on the menu over at my Substack!

À la recherche du vols perdu: The New York to Paris run back in the day

The Cheesiness of Weed: Non-terpene molecules grab the sensory spotlight

AI Bogosity in Berkeley: The scent of desperation

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum: Your piney scent delights us

Sniffing Between the Lines: An English Lit dissertation blows the roof off of X

An Indescribable Russian Space Stink: Plus, holiday fermentation fun

Step Right Up, Folks, Don’t be Shy: How to mass market a “rare” smell

Practicing the Wertz Catch on Alice Street: Farewell to a Boyhood Hero

Don't Get Eliminated!

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 23:51:00 +0000

Let’s Go to a Conference!: How to navigate five days of smell and taste science in Iceland.

Some hard-learned lessons

AI Goes Up the Nose: Never trust a bot.

Techno fad or a malign influence?

Multiple Maniacs: Three Days in L.A.

John Waters and William Blake in the City of Angels

The Music of Perfume: Ambitus, pitch-class entropy, and keeping it simple

Riffing on an interesting experimental design

At the Museum of Scent: A visit with Mandy Aftel and her new book

Catching up with the doyenne of natural perfumery

Mind-raped by Mark Zuckerberg and the Borg: Generative AI repackages other people’s creativity

Tech bros plunder other people’s intellectual property

Holiday Shopping Made Easy

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:25:00 +0000

Do you know someone who is into scent? Who loves entertaining explanations of science? Are you still scrambling for gift ideas?

Well, you’re in luck!

Give your special someone a copy of my book What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life. There is plenty of time to have a paperback copy delivered by Christmas.

For a great digital stocking stuffer and no worries about shipping delays, send a gift copy directly to their Kindle! Click the “Give as Gift” button on Amazon to have it delivered instantly, or schedule it to arrive on the recipient’s device at a specific date and time.

If your someone prefers listening to reading, get them the Audible version!

No Longer in Bug Tussle

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 20:43:00 +0000

Come and listen to my story about a scribe named Jed,

A poor Blogger type, barely kept his timeline fed,

And then one day he was craving more impact,

So up on the web come a brand new Substack.

Free that is, hot takes, check it out.

Scare Tactics: They’re creepy and they’re kooky

Fear-mongering the science on COVID, nose picking, and Alzheimer’s

A Bubble of One’s Own: No book talk for you!

Masking forever in Berkeley

The Zombification of Celebrity Perfumes: Jennifer who?

New fragrances from beyond the grave

Estée Lauder Buys Tom Ford for $2.3 Billion: An illustrated version of the press release

Happy talk to paper over Tom Ford’s vularity

Inside Baseball: The Design of Olfactory Studies: You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball

When is a control group not a control group?

A Bibliophile's Christmas: Literary Suggestions for Long Winter Nights

A few favorites and some that never made my reading list

How About . . . Not?: Some New Year’s resolutions for other people

My suggestions for making the world less insufferable.

Who Wants to be a Yokozuna?

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 17:23:00 +0000

Have you missed the last few matchups? Then get on down to the basho. Remember, it ain’t over till the gyōji calls it.

A Smell Walk on the Mild Side: Missing the forest for the trees

A Quantum of Feelz: Tripping balls in St. Petersburg

AI on My Mind: “I’m sorry Ave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”

Battle of the e-Noses: Is the technology fully baked?

Is Perfume No Longer Sexy?: The NYT thinks so

It's So Rare to Capture One Alive

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 03:24:00 +0000

Quid pro quo. I write these posts, you read these posts. Head over to my Avery Gilbert Substack and sign in to get new content free by email. Just remember to give Dr. Chilton his pen back.

My Dinner with Hannibal: Savoring aromatic literature

Karma in the Conservatory: Blooming ‘corpse flower’ in Golden Gate Park augurs well for possible Nick Zollicker novel

Blecch!: Something for the foodies plus a dive bar recommendation

Serving It Up: Strictly omakase

Losing It: Is Our Sense of Smell Becoming Less Sensitive?: Or is science journalism getting dumber?

WaPo Climate Alarmism: The Smell of Snow is Changing!: With a gratuitous assist from Monell smell scientist Johan Lundström

While You Were Out

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 21:38:00 +0000

Elaborate voicemail hoax? No, it’s me telling you to get on over to my Avery Gilbert substack and catch up on all the scintillating posts that are appearing there (and not here).

COVID-19 Omicron Variant Much Less Likely to Result in Smell Loss: Olfactory research community hardest hit

Predicting Your Perfume Preference: L’Oréal will read your brain waves and tell you what you like

Personal Fragrance and Sensory Panelists: Should Tabu be taboo?

Chilling in France: Can deep freeze treatment undo COVID-19 smell loss?

Of Cherry Garcia® and CSN&Y: A taste of 1970

Get the Takes While They're Hot

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 00:30:00 +0000

Head on over to my substack for the latest.

Better yet, sign up there to have them emailed to you the instant I hit “publish”.

Smells at an Exhibition: Olfactory art isn’t always a grift

American Smellscapes: Truckin’, like the do-dah man

An Appetite for Politics: Vegetable parenting practices and red meat resistance

Rwanda’s Mountain Gorillas Are All Going to Die of COVID-19!: Wait. What? Oh, well, never mind

Puzzle Solved? How the SARS-CoV-2 Virus Shuts Down the Sense of Smell: Clever experiments with live hamsters and human cadavers

Last Minute Gift Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 01:13:00 +0000

Still looking for Christmas gifts? Here are a few ideas.

What the nose knows: The science of smell in everyday life. The perfect book for your nerdy nephew, your brainy niece who’s into perfume, or your foodie friend at the office. If you live in the U.S. there’s still time to send a paperback copy. Or you can send them a Kindle edition to arrive whenever you like.

One or both of the Nick Zollicker stories. Set in Berkeley, California, An Imperfect Mimic finds scent scientist Nick using his fragrance know-how to derail a romantic rival. Smothering the Savage takes place in New York City as Nick is hired to save a fragrance company when its star perfumer goes a bit bonkers. Give these inexpensive stocking stuffers so your friends have something to read after a big Christmas dinner while lounging in their new sweaters in front of the fire. Or send them to your relatives now to keep them amused on the flight out.

Don’t Miss the Party!

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 18:06:00 +0000

If you haven’t visited my Substack recently, here’s what you missed:

A Covid Carol

The ghosts of olfactory science past, present, and future

Listening to the Smell of Stinky Bugs

Is sonification a distraction or a source of insight?

Man Smells Dog

Turning the table on canine olfactory superiority

Don’t miss out. While you are there, sign up for (free) emails with full content of every new post.

New Family of Cannabis Aroma Molecules Identified

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 05:58:00 +0000

Chemists pin the tail on the skunky.

This post, along with all my new stuff, is available at my AveryGilbert Substack. Check it out and sign up (it’s free!)

When Life Hands You (S)-(–)-limonene . . . You Can’t Make Lemonade

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 21:58:00 +0000

Hello dear readers. Are you still browsing FirstNerve? All my new stuff, including this post, is available over at my Avery Gilbert Substack. Give it a look!

Jury in Parlux vs Jay-Z vs Parlux: A Pox on Both of Youse

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 16:20:00 +0000

My latest post is now available at my Avery Gilbert Substack. Check it out and sign up for free delivery by email.

Billie Eilish and the Holy Words

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 20:42:00 +0000

Find my latest post here at Substack and be sure to sign up for free email delivery of future posts.

Will There Ever be Luxury Cannabis?

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 03:48:00 +0000

Check out my new column on Substack.

And subscribe to my Substack feed—get my new work by email as soon as it’s posted!

Taking the Show on the Road

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 23:06:00 +0000

It’s been a good long run here on FirstNerve. But fresher, more flexible platforms beckon.

I’ve launched a new Avery Gilbert feed on Substack—you can find it here.

I encourage you all to go there and sign up for a free subscription, and get new posts delivered directly to your email box. You can also sign in at Substack to view the entire site if you prefer.

See you there!

P.S. FirstNerve won’t be going anywhere for the moment.

Twenty Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 16:41:00 +0000

Today the flag I used to put up every September 11^th in Montclair, New Jersey now hangs on my house in Colorado.

It’s there for the two guys on my old block who were murdered that day 20 years ago.

David Lee Pruim who worked for Aon in 2 World Trade Center.

Michael L. Collins who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in 1 World Trade Center.

Many anniversaries have gone by. The fires are out, the wreckage cleared, new buildings built.

But the grief and anger smolder on.

I will never forget.

ISDP Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 00:11:00 +0000

A little over five years ago we called a wrap on our wildly popular I Smell Dead People™ feature, along with the annual Norman Bates Award™ competition. It wasn’t for lack of compelling material. From a simple premise (a person follows a repulsive smell only to discover cadaverous remains) came stories that illuminated the human condition in all its highs and lows. However there were simply too many incidents to catalog and each one took some unraveling. Also, I needed to free up some time to write what would become the fictional adventures of Nick Zollicker.

This week the lurking thrall of ISDP finally broke through my studied indifference. The first item to grab me was a headline in the august Times of London: “Russian admiral’s wife and son found stabbed to death.” The bodies of Rear Admiral Leonid Lobanov’s elderly wife and middle-aged son were discovered in a St. Petersburg apartment after neighbors complained of a bad smell.

No big deal, right? Standard unnoticed deaths. Wrong: “The pair had been stabbed and slashed several times in the torso, neck and face. They were in a sitting position on a sofa.” And here’s the kicker: the bodies were discovered eight days after the Rear Admiral “died under the wheels of a suburban train near Ruchi station in the northeast of the city, two miles from the apartment where they all lived.”

That’s potentially the basis for a typically dark Russian tale of depravity and intrigue. The only question is whether it should be written in the style of Dostoyevsky or John le Carré.

The second item to leap out at me came from the execrable Star Tribune of Minneapolis. [Why so harsh?—Ed.] [It’s Minnesota’s answer to the Los Angeles Times.] [Oh.—Ed.] The headline wasn’t anything special: “Murder charge: St. Paul woman shot ex-husband, buried him in their back yard.” It was the subhead that raised the relevant possibility: “A neighbor told police about a bad smell coming from near Karina Her’s garden sometime shortly after July 5 and persisting for a week.”

So—do we credit the neighbor with an ISDP find?

Karina Her

Enthusiasts know that to qualify as an ISDP incident, the body in question must be discovered by someone smelling it. Suppose an out-of-state relative requests a welfare check on an elderly family member and the responding police officer detects the telltale scent wafting through an open window. Sorry—no dice. The ISDP Rules Committee sets and maintains very high standards.

From the Star Tribune story (along with this one from WCCOChannel 4) it is unclear whether the neighbor’s complaint led directly to the discovery of the husband’s body. After all, the victim’s stepdaughter apparently implicated her mother in a 911 call. The sequence of events is critical to determining whether this is a true IDSP event. (See how much work this takes?)

Finally, this item from the Overpromising and Underdelivering file: “L.A. Woman Says She Slept 3 Feet From Her Neighbor’s Corpse for Weeks.” At first glance it looks like Reagan Baylee deserves a Norman Bates Award nomination. But it turns out her neighbor’s corpse was in a different apartment.

Ms. Baylee’s emotional and highly personal account, as befits the Age of Social Media, overshares to the point of TMI. (Check out her TikTok video for the full effect.) Still, she supplies some telling details and her story has an excellent plot twist. (Which neighboring apartment was the gruesome odor really coming from?)

Commie Couture

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 03:32:00 +0000

Jing Daily, which alleges to be all about “the business of luxury in China,” has a recent piece on China’s “patriotic perfume boom.” The story condescendingly puts Western fragrance brands on notice while promoting the new hotness: Guochao, which means “Chinese heritage hip.”

Long gone are the days when established global brands could simply crack the Chinese market with a French label and a cliché image portraying an actress wearing the scent during a night walk in Paris. In a market that is increasingly being dominated by up-and-coming Chinese brands, Guochao-themed shopping festivals, and openly patriotic influencers, international perfume houses can no longer claim to be the authoritative gatekeepers of refined taste.

Uh oh. Sounds like trouble for Chanel and Estée Lauder and all the other mega-brands that want to slurp down that sweet, sweet ChiComm money.

Guochao brands are increasingly turning toward local lifestyles for inspiration.

Well, fair enough! Maybe we can help. We locked the FirstNerve marketing team into a windowless conference room and had them brainstorm new Guochao fragrance concepts. Here’s what they came up with:

Kowtow by Lebron James. A sports cologne from the hoops legend himself.

Slave to Love by the Uyghur Autonomy Region Committee. A people, a place, an attitude.

BSL No. 4 by Shi Zhengli. Die Fledermaus turned into a Chinese opera and captured in a bottle.

Lie Flat. The effortless fragrance for slackers.

Deep Cover by Tang Juan. Your scent, your secret.

Kowloon Memories. The scent of freedom fading in the wind.

1989 Chang’an Avenue. Feel the power, fight the force.

Honey Pot, the alluring new scent from Fang Fang.

We’re here! We’re here! Casa Bonita!

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 03:44:00 +0000

If this story from THR is correct, Denver’s pandemic-shuttered and bankrupt Casa Bonita restaurant may soon re-open under the ownership of Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The longtime sentimental favorite featured much entertainment but only so-so Mexican food. It shouldn’t be hard to improve the menu, but Parker also has other ideas:

“I was already thinking about how I was going to make Black Bart’s Cave a little bigger.”

As Eric Cartman once said, “I think we should go through Black Bart's Cave right away ‘cause, we’re gonna wanna do it seven or eight times.”

Make Way for Dionne Warwick

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 00:19:00 +0000

Many in my generation vividly remember Dionne Warwick’s hit songs of the 60s: Walk On By (1964), I Say a Little Prayer (1967), and DoYou Know the Way to San Jose? (1968). The slickly orchestrated pop tunes (by Burt Bacharach and Hal David) were a perfect match to Warwick’s effortless high voice and precise delivery.

So what brings her to mind? Why, a press release from Fragrance Creators Association:

Fragrance Creators Association has announced that DDD3 Inc., owned by entertainer, entrepreneur and philanthropist Dionne Warwick, has joined its membership of more than 60 large and small businesses spanning the fragrance supply chain.

My reactions were, in descending order:

“That’s nice, Dionne Warwick is still alive.” (She is 80 years old.)

“What on earth does she have to do with fragrance?”

It turns out she launched a single, self-named perfume back in 1986. Dionne must not have been too memorable—there is no mention of it on Fragrantica.com and only a placeholder on Basenotes. Good luck trying to find a collectible bottle on eBay.

According to the FCA blurb, she plans to relaunch Dionne “in response to popular demand.” Or perhaps to leverage attention from her recent nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Or perhaps to climb out of her 2013 bankruptcy and deal with an epic $7 million owed to the IRS.

DDD3, Inc., the company named in the press release, is not a fragrance house. It appears to be the corporate entity that books her ongoing musical performances. Warwick’s contract rider can be found online. Alas, it contains nothing as outrageous as Van Halen’s no-brown-M&Ms clause. Sure, Ms. Warwick must be flown first class, but most of the rider concerns stage lighting, rehearsal timing, and orchestra staffing (“Three (3) trombones-two (2) tenor & one (1) bass”). Her dressing room requirements are not particularly diva-ish. She prefers Pepsi (“No Coca Cola or Diet Sodas”), Cristal (“Two (2) bottles of Cristal Champagne per concert (NO SUBSTITUTES)” and is very specific about the fruit plate:

Fresh fruit platter: sliced pineapples, green seedless grapes, sliced watermelon, sliced honeydew melon, sliced cantaloupe melon and bananas. If any of the above fresh fruit is not in season, contact road manager.

Ms Warwick is entitled to earn whatever the market will bear and she is certainly playing every card she can as she climbs out of a deep financial hole. What lingers in the mind, however, is why the Fragrance Creators Association sees fit to include her and her company in its membership on the basis of a one-off scent that vanished after launch 35 years ago.

More Baloney about AI

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 18:03:00 +0000

Some years ago, in What the Nose Knows, I wrote about e-noses and their value to us in the future. I thought it was a rather mixed bag:

At some point in the development of these fusions of silicon and biology, the question becomes not whether the e-nose can replace the human nose, but whether we want it to. Would I let an e-nose sniff-scan me for lung cancer? Sure. Would I use a robotic odor sentinel? Maybe, especially if I had a B.O. problem. But do I really want my refrigerator to tell me, “I’m sorry, Avery, I can’t let you eat those cold cuts”?

(For full effect you have to imagine the fridge speaking in the voice of HAL, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

I remain a fridge-primitivist: I recently bought one that not only isn’t “smart” but has no automatic ice-cube maker. Still, the dream lives on for some people including Ashok Prabhu Masilamani, founder of Canadian tech company Stratuscent which makes a chip that can detect various volatile molecules in the air. He’s quoted in today’s WSJ in an article by Benoit Morenne headlined “A new frontier of AI-enabled gadgets.”

E-noses could also be integrated in smart fridges to detect early signs of expiring food and guide users to items that will expire next, says Dr. Masilamani. Scientists at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore have developed a colored bar code that reacts to gasses from decaying food and a bar code reader that uses AI models to predict food freshness, according to a study published in the Advanced Materials journal in October.

The dream never dies . . .

The WSJ piece also discusses AI-enabled toilets that can analyze your stool sample at the time of delivery. Again, imagine the AI toilet speaking with the voice of HAL:

“Avery, you need to cut back on the kimchi. I have made you an appointment with a gastroenterologist.”

On second thought it would be much better if the AI spoke with the accent of an 18^th Century royal physician in England:

“Good news. A fetid and a stinking stool.”
[Assembled colleagues nod in agreement.]
“The colour good, well shaped, and a prodigious quantity.”

Play It Again

noreply@blogger.com (Avery Gilbert) — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 19:26:00 +0000

The Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California is hosting yet another blooming corpse flower. Can you say “overkill”? This is their twelfth one.

Naturally they are livestreaming the blessed event on their u-tube channel. When I last checked it had 59 viewers. They have not enabled comments which makes it even more joyless than usual.

It’s time for someone to create livestream corpse flower commentary, just like the gamers do. I think The Ocho’s Cotton McKnight and his sidekick Pepper Brooks could be the right team:

Cotton: Wow, that makes 3 millimeters in the last hour alone.

Pepper: That’s right Cotton. It’s a towering erection that just won’t stop.

Cotton: And we’re getting wind now of a smell . . . a distinctive odor that resembles day-old roadkill.

Pepper: That’s what the bloaty stage is all about, Cotton. Pretty soon we’ll need barf bags.