GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Why do ripe fruits -- especially when canned -- smell bad? -- excluding apples and cantaloupes

Mark Thorson

wrote:

And even amongst "ordinary" humans there is lots of variation in sense
of smell. For example, where I work it is useful to be able to smell
low concentrations of cyanide (as hydrogen cyanide gas). Most people
smell something like almonds. One person says he doesn't smell it,
but instead he tastes it. There is another who can't smell it at all,
and so is totally dependent on personal electronic sensors and lab
cyanide alarms to warn if something is going wrong.

In college organic chemistry, I worked with strong cyanide
reagents and sometimes they were dumped down the sink
with acids that would liberate HCN gas, causing
evacuation of the undergraduate chem lab, and I never
noticed any odor like almonds or anything else.

Apparently, this is well known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide...rance_and_odor