Exeter is a stunning city but now and then, especially in hot and windy weather, you're forced to wrinkle your nose. And there is quite a clear, council moderated reason for the the pungent "smell of death" wafting across the city: SecAnim. Over the years scores of residents and businesses have complained about the whiff coming from a processing plant for dead animals (and their byproducts) particularly in the St Leonard's and Marsh Barton area. Off Water Lane, the Unilever firm does its best to regulate the smell but sometimes, for reasons including hot sunshine hitting the trucks carrying the waste and rats chewing through equipment wires at the plant itself (more on that below), the grim aroma will inevitably spill out into the air. The pong wrestles the nostrils to such an extent that Exeter City Council created an entire liaison group with the sole intention of discussing complaints about it, meeting twice a year. Last summer the council received 19 pages of complaints about … [Read more...] about This is why Exeter STINKS in the summer
Why bad smell from nose
What happens when you only eat food from the freezer for a week
Everyone has had a couple of days in a row where you've got lazy or simply not had time to cook a proper meal so you've just nuked a ready meal in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Of course, there are many different types of frozen food - from nasty boxed 'meals-for-one' to lovely looking healthier foods that have all the good things in you that help keep you alive and well. But what about doing it for an entire week? Is it advisable, will it kill you, will you save money? Molly Holt at The The Mirror found out Day one Full of first day excitement, I woke up early and began prepping my food for the day ahead. And it was here, barely minutes into Monday, that I hit my first hurdle: My distinct lack of microwave. Living in a tiny flat means that not only do I have limited living space, but there’s also no room in my beloved but compact kitchen for the modern miracle that is the microwave: home to five minute ready meals, one-bowl recipes and of course, speedy defrosting. … [Read more...] about What happens when you only eat food from the freezer for a week
Women reveal what really turns them off from back hair and skid marks to texting ‘yeah’ as they hit back at men’s brutal list
THEY say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it turns out that beholder can have some pretty specific demands. After a group of men revealed hairy nipples, crusty eyelashes and a footie obsession top their (pretty brutal) list of turn offs, women have hit back with their say. Safe to say they don’t hold back… lads, you’d better hope you measure up. “You need a lawnmower just to find some men’s willies... it’s revolting” Nilufer Atik, 43 "When it comes to male turn offs, the biggest one for me is definitely bad teeth. I don’t mean a few wonky nashers, I'm talking about teeth so horribly misshapen and rotten they could give Shane MacGowan a run for his money. I once got chatted up by a bar manager whose teeth were actually green. I hadn’t noticed until the lights went up at the end of the night and he smiled and asked me if I’d like to carry on our conversation elsewhere. I was nearly sick. Number two on my list of libido … [Read more...] about Women reveal what really turns them off from back hair and skid marks to texting ‘yeah’ as they hit back at men’s brutal list
The weirdest jobs in the world from working as a professional armpit smeller to tasting dog food for £50k or testing water slides
MOST of us would do everything in our power to avoid smelling another person's BO. But for some people, smelling armpits is all in a day's work. More and more people are signing up to be professional armpit smellers - employed by fragrance and cosmetics companies to test the effectiveness of perfumes and deodorants. But, unbelievably, it's not the the most bizarre job on the planet. Last year a university in California put a call out for anyone who wanted to earn money by eating avocados for three months to see if it aided weight loss. They were inundated with applications and 250 people managed to snag a place on the three-month trial. Meet the professional train pushers of Tokyo It's far from the only odd job out there though. From cuddling people for money to mourning the deaths of strangers on a day-to-day basis, there's a whole glut of unusual and downright wacky jobs if you're looking for a career change. Even better, most of them don't even require prior training or … [Read more...] about The weirdest jobs in the world from working as a professional armpit smeller to tasting dog food for £50k or testing water slides
Appliance of Science: Do we have a poor sense of smell?
Do we have a poor sense of smell? Most of us would answer yes to this, we are all used to hearing that our sense of smell is one of our weakest senses and it is much less developed when compared to many other animals. But this is not actually the case. Our sense of smell is probably the most underrated of all the senses. So why all the bad press? Busting the myth There are a number of reasons that it was assumed that our sense of smell was not really that impressive; one main reason stems from a 19th century study comparing the percentage of the brain’s smell processing region (the olfactory bulb) to the total brain volume. The study compared the size of the olfactory bulb in many different species. The percentage of the brain given up to the olfactory bulb varied greatly in different animals, the mouse came out tops with its olfactory bulb taking up about two percent of its brain (by volume), while the dog’s came in about 0.3%. The human olfactory bulb trailed behind all … [Read more...] about Appliance of Science: Do we have a poor sense of smell?