The Odor of Things – Solving the mysteries of scent(harpers.org) |
The Odor of Things – Solving the mysteries of scent(harpers.org) |
As the article says, you can train your sense of smell. Just reading Nosedive has been enough to retrain how I think about certain smells. Recently someone was complaining about how bad some old shoes smelled, and all I could think was that they smelled like cheese rind, which is much less unpleasant.
Edit:
> others cannot detect the sulfur compounds responsible for the unpleasant odor of “asparagus pee.”
Not everyone produces that smell after eating asparagus either, which complicates things
> It is understood that certain chemicals block certain receptors, occupying their binding sites such that no other volatile molecules can reach them. These antagonists might have smells of their own—they activate other receptors—but, in principle, they will dampen or eliminate the smells that depend on the receptors they block. Such aromachemicals could be used not simply to cover up the stink of a latrine, but, in essence, to prevent it from being smelled at all.
Many animals have more nasal sensor than humans do; but even those with much less pay more attention to their sense of smell than almost any human can. The article mentions "realized I could smell a cigarette in the car in front of me" ... many humans have that sensitivity ant the biological level but have spent their lives learning to ignore, rather than interpret, those signals.
Growing up I had a dog that would eat anything. ANYTHING. He was a shop dog and lived with a few other dogs in my fathers shop (they came home on occasion). He would lick the stainless steel chips out of the milling machine trough and his poop would sparkle in the sun. He enjoyed chewing on razor sharp contiguous spiral steel chips from a stainless job we ran on a lathe. Loved eating leather work gloves, and chewing up buffing wheels and the buffing wax. He would find stray cat poops in the yard and merrily chew and play with them. Eat a dead squirrel carcass and stink like it for a day? no problem! Unclog the toilet and lick the poop off the plunger? Delish! My mother bought in the remains of a chicken dinner and he got a hold of the whole chicken skeleton when no one was looking and ate the thing in under 2 minutes, bones and all. He also once got into a bag of little balloons and was pooping out rainbows. He would let himself out (sneak out) and roam the neighborhood once eating the groceries of a neighbor who set them down on the porch to unlock her door. Never had to go to the vet for eating anything. He was a Shepard mix and died at 16 and a half. That dogs stomach was stronger than anything in that shop, truly a shop dog worthy of the title.
What didn't he eat? Anything you'd put Sweet and sour sauce on. Found that out after trying to give him leftover burger king nuggets. The one thing the dog wouldn't eat was actually something delicious. Probably the vinegar.