Robin points to this bit of fluff.

The first experiment evaluated fairness. As a test of whether clean scents would enhance reciprocity, participants played a classic "trust game." Subjects received $12 of real money (allegedly sent by an anonymous partner in another room). They had to decide how much of it to either keep or return to their partners who had trusted them to divide it fairly. Subjects in clean-scented rooms were less likely to exploit the trust of their partners, returning a significantly higher share of the money.

· The average amount of cash given back by the people in the "normal" room was $2.81. But the people in the clean-scented room gave back an average of $5.33.

The second experiment evaluated whether clean scents would encourage charitable behavior. Subjects indicated their interest in volunteering with a campus organization for a Habitat for Humanity service project and their interest in donating funds to the cause.

· Participants surveyed in a [citrus-scented] Windex-ed room were significantly more interested in volunteering (4.21 on a 7-point scale) than those in a normal room (3.29).

· 22 percent of Windex-ed room participants said they'd like to donate money, compared to only 6 percent of those in a normal room.

Follow-up questions confirmed that participants didn't notice the scent in the room and that their mood at the time of the experiment didn't affect the outcomes.

Robin is wowed:

In my experience, the touchy-feely folks who talk the most about wanting to encourage more trust and charity do not get along that well with the anal folks who want everything to be very clean. So I expect the first group will be reluctant to accept that this second group has been right all along – they want more charity via folks feeling guilty, not via folks feeling clean. So even if this study is confirmed by further research, I expect lots of resistance to its policy implications. After all, politics is less about policy, and charity less about outcomes, than about who should be admired.

I prefer science.

Aromatherapy, the use of fragrant plant oils to improve mood and health, has become a popular form of alternative medicine today. And linalool is one of the most widely used substances to soothe away emotional stress. Until now, however, linalool's exact effects on the body have been a deep mystery.

The scientists exposed lab rats to stressful conditions while inhaling and not inhaling linalool. Linalool returned stress-elevated levels of neutrophils and lymphocytes — key parts of the immune system — to near-normal levels. Inhaling linalool also reduced the activity of more than 100 genes that go into overdrive in stressful situations. The findings could form the basis of new blood tests for identifying fragrances that can soothe stress, the researchers say.

There are two main types (enantiomeric forms) of linalool that can loosely be divided into those that are minty and those that are citrusy. The citrus-scented windex used in the "experiment" fits the citrusy enantiomeric form of linalool, but since this was a loosey-goosey non-scientific "study" that doesn't seem to have been noted, or documented, or apparently even known by the "researchers".

But that's not the only defect. The whole idea that fairness is being tested is nonsensical. That's a culturally defined idea which has no truth value. All they were testing is if a narrowly selected group upheld the norms of that group.

The skewed nature of the study is even more apparent in the selection of Habitat for Humanity as a charity. I would not give money to them since I don't find their charitable work to be admirable. There are far better charities. I'm sure that given only that choice in a test that I would give less than if it had been an admirable charity, or a choice of charities had been offered.

Given all of these defects in experimental design I find it hard to draw conclusions of any sort.