Copper ions in our body may be the source of our sensitivity to sulphurous odours including skunks, bacteria and armpits, researchers at Duke University in North Carolina have found.
In the course of studying a sulphurous chemical in male mouse urine that attracts female mice, researchers tested several hundred mammalian odour receptors and discovered that one particular copper-binding receptor caused enhanced detection of even trace amounts of sulphur. The researchers believe this result should be generalisable to human olfactory receptors.
Read more at Duke University