Define the word, "obtuse." The more you've read, the more likely you are to know the meaning of that and other relatively bookish words.
William Nazaroff and Glenn Morrison at the University of California at Berkeley started doing experiments on carpet samples to see what the culprit was. They found a bunch of chemicals called aldehydes that were responsible for the nasty smell.
There are few insects more reviled than the cockroach. Maybe we’re just jealous: cockroaches were around long before humans, and will continue to do their thing long after our species has gone the way of the woolly mammoth.