Olfaction

7 articles
  • Article Recirculation Lead Image

    Why Smelling the Opposite Sex Can Age You

    It’s possible that sensing the presence of a female may effectively activate processes involved in reproduction, which might facilitate a male’s reproductive success if those females were around, but could increase aging as a consequence.Classic Film / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . There’s the usual advice. If […]
  • Humphries_HERO

    We Weren’t Designed to Appreciate Good Perfume

    Our sense of smell may have evolved to detect danger, not beauty.
  • Article Recirculation Lead Image

    The Long, Hard Quest to Create Digital Smells

    Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Of all of the wondrous feats accomplished by Willy Wonka in his candy factory, the most impressive may have been wedging an entire meal into just one unassuming stick of gum: Upon popping it in your mouth and chewing, you’d first taste tomato […]
  • Hands touching

    So Human, So Beautiful

    I look into the mirror and try to see what another human would see. My beard is months old, scraggly and dirty, my balding head covered with wisps of gray. I take out the scissors and start to clean it up. Thoughts of other people, being with other people, force their way to the surface, […]
  • Article Recirculation Lead Image

    Animals’ Wildly Varying Reactions to the Smell of Death

    Cadaverine and putrescine are the chemicals responsible for the dead-flesh stench.
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    Seeing Maps of Sounds and Smells

    Jorge Louis Borges once described an empire that wanted to build a map. But the maps they had seen before were not precise enough. They had too much compression and approximation. There was too much inexactitude. And so the empire eventually made a map of the empire that was the size of the empire, and […]

  • The_Incredibly_Weird_733x550.jpg

    Your Very Weird, Very Personal Sense of Smell

    We’re used to the idea that some among us are colorblind, perceiving the world differently because of a quirk in their genetics. And it’s well-known that teenagers and young adults can hear high-pitched sounds that their elders cannot, an ability that’s been exploited by manufacturers of The Mosquito, an anti-loitering device that annoys youth into leaving. […]