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SANDALWOOD (santalol) is an isomer, but only the (-) form gives the well-known sandalwood scent. View in LinkedIn

MENTHOL has 8 stereoisomers or 4 enantiomeric pairs; only the (-) enantiomer has the clean minty odor. https://lnkd.in/e9NBUvg View in LinkedIn

CHIRAL SCENTS continues this week, where molecules that are identical except for handedness may have entirely different biological properties including smell. These may be called Looking Glass scents, after Alice. View in LinkedIn

SPANISH. I am learning Spanish. As a new word goes in, an old one leaves (the filing cabinet is full). My grammar is a mess. One day I risk loosing my British passport. View in LinkedIn

THIS ENDS this weekend's fragment in nature, in plant olfaction, to be continued on the next few weekends. View in LinkedIn

FAMOUS EXPERIMENTS of dodder plants, testing their ability to 'smell' a tomato plant to parasitize. "Plants detect a volatile chemical in the air, and they convert this signal (albeit nerve-free) into a physiological response. Surely this could be considered olfaction." (Chamovitz). https://lnkd.in/ebihGuY View in LinkedIn

"DODDER uses olfaction to hunt down its quarry. It can distinguish potential victims from their smell, homing in on its favourites and also using scents emitted by unhealthy specimens to avoid them." https://lnkd.in/eKXZv2j View in LinkedIn

DODDER. "The parasitic vine called dodder is the sniffer dog of the vegetable world. It contains almost no chlorophyll - the pigment that most plants use to make food - so to eat it must suck the sugary sap from other plants." https://lnkd.in/eKXZv2j View in LinkedIn

PLANT OLFACTION. "The tendrils of plants are especially sensitive to airborne volatile organic compounds." Parasites such as Dodder make use of this in locating and locking onto prey. https://lnkd.in/eq7X3tN View in LinkedIn

"ELECTROCHEMICAL EXCITATION is caused by ionic fluxes through the cell plasma membrane, creating an electric charge modification in the membrane itself, as well as a differential charge on either side. Plant plasma membranes always maintain a potential, the cell interior being more negative than the exterior, arising mainly from the activity of electrogenic pumps." https://lnkd.in/e6_VTMg View in LinkedIn