In article <hvartan.7.0A42FFFF at greenneedles.ultranet.com>
hvartan at greenneedles.ultranet.com (Hugh Vartanian) writes:
> Hi
> I'm writing a children's book on gross smells.
What a great idea!
> One of the premises of the
> book is to provide a scientific explanation of the sources of such everyday
> unpleasant odors such as rotten eggs (I kind of doubt it is hydrogen
> sulfide
> or that the yellow of egg yolks is from sulfur), skunk cabbage (perhaps I
> should check the botanical sources?), sour milk, etc.
Some byproducts of anaerobic metabolism (rotting) are vile-smelling
small organic molecules with colorful, descriptive names. My personal
favorites are cadaverine (1,5-diaminopentane) and putrescine
(1,4-diaminobutane). Perhaps you could include a little
scratch-n-sniff patch in the book....
Cheers,
M.
