The odd, enduring appeal of a scarce commodity few people use and no one really needs Text by Mark Wilding, Illustrations by Aurélie Beatley, Hakai In a sparsely furnished office building in the ...

A man wanders along a beach, picking up smelly rocks and poking things with sticks. If one of the gray-green lumps he seeks happens to have just the right scent—of squid, musk, and fecal matter—it ...

Whale, you’ll never believe what makes certain perfumes and colognes smell so good. A rare, waxy material called ambergris — known as “floating gold,” it’s something of a treasure in the fragrance ...