How Smell Guides Our Inner World

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-smell-guides-our-inner-world-20250703/

61•anarbadalov•1mo ago

Comments

DarkNova6•1mo ago

I was hoping to read an article on how smells guide our bio-chemistry, but it’s more a historical piece.

Sense of smell strikes me as the sense with the greatest discrepency between individuals. Some are incredibly attuned, others are completely oblivious to it.

Clearly the piece is written by somebody very passionate about their own sense of smell.

justonceokay•1mo ago

I began smelling (ha!) much more acutely after living for a few years with some country bumpkins in Seattle. We would take walks together and they could smell mushrooms, flowers, animals, and other things on the wind that I was not privy too.

I think in cities we just aren’t taught to use our noses so that muscle doesn’t get exercised.

hearsathought•1mo ago

> I think in cities we just aren’t taught to use our noses so that muscle doesn’t get exercised.

We are taught to use our noses for different things. Smell of piss, feces, gas, garbage, etc.

slfnflctd•1mo ago

Don't forget vomit. For me, it's the worst smell by far in certain population dense areas. I will go to great lengths to avoid it.

DarkNova6•1mo ago

I actually grew up in the province and later moved to a city. Can't say it had a noticeable affect on me shrug.

kayo_20211030•1mo ago

> “The most crucial finding of this data set is really to appreciate that there are differences in olfactory perception,”

Honestly, I'm shocked to learn that. Shocked!

kayo_20211030•1mo ago

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Quanta plumbing the shallows of science again. PBS does a better job, and they have less money,

jcynix•1mo ago

The sense oft smell must be one of the oldest senses, think of small entities swimming in some "primordial" soup looking for nutritious stuff.

What I found most interesting to learn about our sense of smell some years ago is that "We Smell With Every Organ In Our Body, Not Just Our Noses" cf. https://www.ravishly.com/2014/10/16/smell-nose-olfactory-rec...

randycupertino•1mo ago

I read an interesting book about smell and it mentioned that smell is the only sense that bypasses the thalamus, which is why smells often trigger emotions before you recognize the associated conscious thought. Olfactory signals go straight from the nose to our limbic system. It was The Forgotten Sense by Jonas Olofsson.

Also the "humans can recognize 10,000 unique scents" is outdated, a modern study by Science found humans can discriminate over a trillion smells!

Interesting stuff.

Personally I have been getting very into different perfumes lately, it's a very fun hobby! I love getting the different samples and finding new unique ones I love. My current favorite is Prada Infusion de Rhubarbe, it's clean, tangy and fresh with rhubarb and citrus. My partner got me a perfume sample pack for Christmas and it's been so much fun trying new ones each morning :)

cmrx64•1mo ago

smell isn’t integrated in the thalamus with other sensory streams, it does something else entirely

FloorEgg•1mo ago

I used to get migraines and sometimes they would be triggered by smells.

Thankfully I have thad a migraine in over 10 years.

memoriesofsmell•1mo ago

Two anecdotes to contribute here: First, due to allergic rhinitis, my sense of smell was pretty muted for much of my life, only in the last few years when I developed a taste for wines did I start making a serious effort to manage that better and develop my sens of smell. It's been quite a pleasure to do.

Secondly, a friend of mine keeps (kept?) drawers full of jars with different things in them that had specific smells associated with them. In the same way someone might keep a photo album, she kept a collection of smells which would vividly recall a memory for her. To this day I still find that absolutely fascinating that she was able to do that so reliably.

The contrast of her experiences with smell vs mine was quite astounding to me and something I've thought about a lot since meeting her a few years ago.

popalchemist•1mo ago

The olfactory nerve is direct neighbors to the memory center of the brain. That's why the memory trigger happens when you smell a specific smell.

memoriesofsmell•1mo ago

If someone blindfolds me and puts a smell under my nose, even if it's something I smell regularly, I will struggle to pick it personally. So discovering that other people can recall things so strongly as a result feels like a hidden super power to me!

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