You may have joked about it, wishing you could put the smell of the seaside in a bottle and opening it later at the office just so you could set your mind wandering. But that’s just a joke, right? Well, not anymore.
Dimethyl sulphide (DMS) is the gas that gives off that distinctive odor and though it doesn’t sound very romantic, DMS is the trigger that let’s you know the water is near. Scientists from the University of East Anglia made the discovery:
DMS is a little known but important gas. Across the world’s oceans, seas and coasts, tens of millions of tonnes of it are released by microbes that live near plankton and marine plants, including seaweeds and some salt-marsh plants. The gas plays an important role in the formation of cloud cover over the oceans, with major effects on climate. Indeed, the phenomenon was used by James Lovelock as a plank to underpin his ‘Gaia hypothesis’.
DMS is also a remarkably effective food marker for ocean-going birds such as shearwaters and petrels. It acts as a homing scent – like Brussels sprouts at the Christmas dinner table! – and the birds sniff out their plankton food in the lonely oceans at astonishingly low concentrations.
There has to be some huge commercial potential here, we’ll have to wait and see who comes up with something first. You know how those bakeries in the mall seed the air with the scent of freshly baked bread, how about a travel agency helping you plan your tropical getaway and discreetly adding a touch of DMS to the air? It’s bound to happen.
Link: Cloning the seaside
