Japanese Web site keeps track of smells, good and bad

TOKYO -- A group of Japanese are taking their noses global with a Web site that describes different odors around the world and pinpoints where they can be found on a map.

Launched in December, the "Nioi-bu," or Smell Club, has registered more than 160 scents around the world, ranging from "steam coming out of a rice cooker" to "used socks in the summer," and pinpointed their locations on a Google map.

Nearly 200 members, called "smellists," have joined the Japanese-language only site, said Kayo Matsubara, spokeswoman of its operator, KAYAC Inc.

Some of what they report: "A toasty odor of cow dung" in Fujisawa City, just southwest of Tokyo. In Kamakura, eastern Japan, "cats with halitosis" were suspected to be roaming about.

"All that is missing on the Web is a smelling function," Matsubara said. "That's our next challenge."

Not all reports are of stenches; from Paris, there is a "scent of verbena soap near a monastery," and from Thailand's ancient capital Ayuthaya, a mix of "incense, grass, dirt and wild dogs."



Read Japanese?

If you can, follow your nose around the smell map at www.nioibu.com.