Research Team Identifies Human Odorant Receptor for Horse Stable Odor

Para-cresol is an aromatic compound with a strong horse stable-like odor. It contributes to the off-flavor of some foods, but it is also detectable as a characteristic odorant in whiskey and tobacco, as well as in the urine of various mammals. A research team led by the Leibniz Institute of Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now discovered which odorant receptor humans use to perceive para-cresol.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Female scent – accelerated growth in juvenile male mice

Exposing female house mice (Mus musculus) to the scent of male urine is known to accelerate their sexual development in what scientists call the Vandenbergh effect. A recently published study led by the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna now shows that this effect works both ways. The study found that juvenile male mice grew significantly faster when exposed to female urinary scent.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New biomarkers for coffee consumption

In search of new biomarkers for nutrition and health studies, a research team from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich (LSB) has identified and structurally characterized three metabolites that could be considered as specific markers for individual coffee consumption. These are degradation products of a group of substances that are formed in large quantities during coffee roasting but are otherwise rarely found in other foods. This and the fact that the potential biomarkers can be detected in very small amounts of urine make them interesting for future human studies.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Cheetah marking trees are hotspots for communication also for other species

Marking trees are important hotspots of communication for cheetahs: Here they exchange information with and about other cheetahs via scent marks, urine and scats. A team from the Cheetah Research Project of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) now showed that several mammalian species on farmland in Namibia maintain a network for intra- and interspecific communication at cheetah trees. Black-backed jackals, African wildcats and warthogs visited and sniffed the cheetahs‘ “places to be” more frequently than control trees.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Prostate cancer urine test identifies good prognosis patients

Researchers have shown that a prostate cancer urine test can identify men at ‚intermediate risk‘ who can safely avoid immediate treatment and benefit from ‚active surveillance‘ instead. Previously, the team’s Prostate Urine Risk (PUR) test could identify men with high and low risk cancers. But thanks to some fine-tuning, it can now help men with intermediate-risk disease – for whom treatment options had been less clear.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

New prostate cancer test could avoid unnecessary biopsies

A urine test could have avoided one third of unnecessary prostate cancer biopsies while failing to detect only a small number of cancers, according to a validation study that included more than 1,500 patients.

Quelle: Sciencedaily