The Secret of Smell

By Gregory Mone Posted 11.26.2007 at 10:47 am 2 Comments

Humans have the capacity to pick up as many as 10,000 different odors, but for most of us, many of the genes controlling our sense of those smells have shut down business.

Now researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science are reporting that a particular gene controls an individual's sensitivity to the smell of sweat. Basically, some unlucky folks have a heightened ability to pick up body odor. The scientists also found that women are more sensitive to many smells than men. Some other interesting facts: two million people in the US have no sense of smell at all and one in a thousand can't smell skunks.

The paper appears online in PLoS Biology, and there's a nice summary here.—Gregory Mone

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2 Comments

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popsci

11/26/07 at 11:48 am

How can a person not smell a skunk? Hope somebody develops some apparatus to help the others who cannot smell at all. I mean who can live without smelling Italian food or without smelling garlic and herbs. Those people are also missing out on the smell of spring. Those people are missing out on the smell of flowers

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popsci

11/27/07 at 7:48 am

Hi: I have a loss of smell, it came on gradully with me wondering about the quality of the foods I ate and second guessing myself. At this point I not only can not smell spring, But other things that are not pleasurable but dangerous. Natural gas, gasoline, solvents, Skunk, my own possible body oder etc. At first I could smell afew things but my smell has gotten worse with time. What frustrates me the most is people asking me why I eat the foods I love but not others because I can not smell them. The answer is a persons tongue it feels texture and still gives you sweet bitter sour and salty. Without smell you lose the bad, Dog dropping vomit for example, but you lose the world sround you as a smell and a mind key to smells of your past. Happy Holidays!!