Word: scent
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...animal, there are few things as valuable as a good nose. In a world without speech, it's often scent alone that tells you if a stranger is in the mood to mate or in distress, is preparing to attack or about to retreat in fear. The chemicals that carry these odorless messages are called pheromones, and while most animals produce them, the highest animals--humans--were thought to be above such crude olfactory signals...
...year-old has a full beard and a spastic eye. Then there is his home in Lancaster, Ohio. The first thing you notice when you enter Harris' world is the smell, the stench of numerous cats and dogs in a cramped bungalow. This is laced with the subtler scent of a basement filled with dried foods, stockpiled for the aftermath of the coming race war. Enter Harris' bedroom and you will find lab equipment and a refrigerator, from which Harris pulls a sample of a growth medium for cultivating biological weapons. Talking of biologically induced mass death, he nonchalantly remarked...
There is throughout the account the sweet-and-sour scent of a high school romance. Lewinsky talked of presents they exchanged: he gave her a dress and a volume of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass; she gave him ties and a statue of a frog (an old Clinton obsession), along with love letters and a sexually explicit tape; the packages were addressed to Currie and delivered by private courier...
...matter is suspiciously similar. When Holub dispenses unqualified environmental advice and chastises trendy scientific theorists, his otherwise sparkling essays acquire the atmosphere of soapbox sermons. The otherwise pedestrian chapter is punctuated by a few gems, such as "What the Nose Knows," a Proustian reverie on the atavistic power of scent, and the powerful "Shedding Life," which might have been titled "Killing a Muskrat" in homage to Orwell. The final section, "No," manages to redeem the second by drawing on his experiences in Czechoslovakia to further his political and scientific crusade...
...shoulder-high weeds in no time," says Rice. Their attempt at a two-acre wildflower meadow--the current planting of choice for exurban sophisticates--was also overrun by native grasses. A Japanese beetle infestation led them to buy traps that attract the insects with a sexual scent. Such traps work well in suburban backyards, but on a farm they work too well. "We filled garbage bags with the bastards," says Rice. Finally, they asked a neighboring farmer for advice. "He fell off his tractor laughing," says Rice. "He said, 'Paul, you don't trap 'em. You spray...