Wasabi fire alarm alerts deaf in Japan
1st February 2010
Japanese horseradish, whose smell is more usually found in sushi restaurants, contains allyl isothiocyanate – the same chemical compound that gives mustard its bite – and tests at the Shiga University of Medical Science have shown that virtually all the hearing-impaired people exposed to the odour of wasabi woke up within two-and-a-half minutes.
That would certainly make me wonder what was going on.