Slashdot Mirror
Sense of Smell Tied To Quantum Physics?
SpaceAdmiral writes "A controversial theory that proposes that our sense of smell is based not on the shape of the molecules that enter our nose but on their vibrations was given a boost recently when University College London researchers determined that the quantum physics involved makes sense. The theory, proposed in the mid-1990s by biophysicist Luca Turin, suggests that electron tunneling initiates the smell signal being sent to the brain. It could explain why similarly shaped molecules can have very different smells, and molecules with very different structures can smell similar." Turin has now formed a company to design odorants using his theory, and claims an advantage over the competition of two orders of magnitude in rate of discovery. The article concludes, "At the very least, he is putting his money where his nose is."
I am going to be very skeptical of this and would not be tossing any money into a private company to study this just yet. The olfactory system is well capable of distinguishing many small molecules, even those that are very similar using a variety of well known and well understood processes just as in the immune system. Look, a Nobel prize was awarded back in the 30's for the discovery that IGGs can recognize even racemic molecules such as L and D forms of glycine even and the olfactory literature is just as rich. The biggest problem however, with the UCL approach is that it completely ignores years of cortical, subcortical and psychophysics data. Furthermore, there is no effort or model in their work that might explain how the signals would be transduced into cortical/subcortical signals or how they account for potential noise in the system. Their claim that signals can be translated through tunneling in a biological system which likely swamps those potential signals with noise is what really troubles me.
I am not saying that they should not do it, or that they are absolutely wrong, as it is possibly interesting. Rather all I am saying is my eyebrows are raised at their claims.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I remember reading about this guy (probably on the Slashdots) years ago, and I hoped that this would be one of those rare cases of someone who is rejected by the "scientific community" and then goes on to success. There are so many scientists out there that end up on dead-end roads (I'm looking at you, Cold Fusion), that it's nice to have a reminder that there's still reason to explore.
For proof that success is the best revenge, just check out the company's product list. They're making a killing by creating replacements for aromatic allergens.
I guess one thing that made me think he was on to something was his reaction to the scientific community's snub -- one response I recall likened a quantum-mechanical sense of smell to "food being processed in the stomach by nuclear reactions". He did NOT go around telling the world that the scientist cabal was out to get him, or that the perfume cartel was conspiring to suppress his work. He simply went about building a successful business by *using* his hypothesis to create and license useful, concrete products.
You know, I think this is why we have patents in the first place. Not so megacorporations can trademark "business practices" -- if I hear another insurance company or bank describe their latest gimmick with a "patent pending" disclaimer I'm gonna puke. It's so some little guy on the right track can take a risk and come out on top.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Does that mean that Schroedinger's cat may or may not smell like a corpse if it's dead?
If I haven't gotten a whiff of my cat's litter yet, it is in neither state of smelling fresh or stinky?
Or if it does smell stinky, I can be certain in another universe it smells like roses?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I have this feeling we're just on the edge of a scientific revolution in understanding the human body. How many stories in the last few years have we read about using various types of stem cells that give birth to new retinal and nerve endings in the eye, that will give the blind the ability of sight.. or the giving birth to a new pancreas... doctors learning how to harness stem cells for regrowing teeth, understanding how cancer cells operate... It brings me back to that goofy star trek movie where they kidnap the whale from the 20th century, the Doctor Bones is horrified at the procedures they use to resucitate a victim of cardiac arrest or whatever, he views the whole procedure as barbaric medicine... I feel the same way about what's happening now, if only I could live to see through the revolution in medical science that's happening now. I'm probably too old though, being in my 30's, but one day I wouldn't be surprised if limbs and eyes could be regrown, cancer is understood and easily treated, a great number of ills to be cured... sigh, if only time were not an issue.
This means that my ass can change the quantum state of that burrito I had for lunch!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
... I think this theory really stinks.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
"I am not saying that they should not do it, or that they are absolutely wrong, as it is possibly interesting. Rather all I am saying is my eyebrows are raised at their claims."
I propose the theory of tunneling eyebrows.
My ass must be a quantum computer. I've just computed the square of a taco bells and egg mayonaise bagel. Interesting result, a little damp but these things happen.
Isn't, uhm, everything tied to quantum physics?
Take off every sig. For great justice.
...development of the brown streaking common in many undergarments, said researchers from the Hanes Institute of Applied Physics.
...with our nose!
That's nothing to sniff at.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
...suggests that electron tunneling initiates the smell signal being sent to the brain.
That would explain why I could evacuate a room about 30 seconds before the smell of one of my roommate's horrendous "floorboards" hit everyone else in the room. The bewildered expression on everyone's face when I ran out the room but before they got hit was priceless.
...this theory makes scents?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
--
He had me until this sentence (although the line that he found the theory interesting enough to refute was a very nice touch).
Electrons, photons, and protons are all merely models to explain in tangible terms what the **** is going on down there, so I become skeptical when these terms are utilized to explain/demonstrate quantum mechanics. We know how to use electricity, buy it, sell it, how to protect our kids from it, yet we really don't know what it is. Two and a half degrees in Chemistry has taught me little that's applicable to the English speaking world, save this: we don't have a clue what's going on at that level of reality, but we're absolutely certain it involoves nothing at all that could be described as little balls orbiting other balls and emitting electrical charges. That's merely a model to make sense of it, and an imitation of life at best.
Something else about Quantum Mechanics/Chemistry: If what anyone says doesn't sound medeival, they're probably thinking too hard and incorrectly. It's gotta sound really strange or it's not QM/C.
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
I'm here are week folks....
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Anyone else experiencing the webpage reloading itself endlessly?
1 0_pf.html
Go to http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061204/pf/061204-
His scents sense makes cents.
At the bottom, yes. This is trying to show that QM is involved more directly than the usual explanation.
The usual explanation for smell is the lock-and-key hypothesis: a specific receptor fits a molecule of a specific shape. It's similar to (and in fact related to) the immune response. QM is involved, but only in the way the molecules fold and interact, so the QM is all wrapped up by plain old chemistry.
This explanation invokes QM more directly, in a way that can't be explained by plain old chemistry. It comes down to an observation that different isotopes can smell different (to animals; we have crummy senses of smell). Since the usual chemical interactions aren't affected by different isotopes, and it's unlikely that nuclear forces are involved, that leaves QM.
Wasn't one of the rebuttals to Penrose's books that there couldn't be any quantum processes at work in the brain because of (reason X)[1] I wonder if anyone knows enough to comment on this? 1: Basically quantum effects were supposed to be too small? I really can't remember.
Quantum level models are very limited in the lengthscales and timescales they are able to model. Shouldn't they first try a slightly less microscopic explanation, based in molecular dynamics that should be easier to verify. You still can have rich dynamics, with vibrations and rotations and diffusion and changes in configuration that might account for the different interactions between the receptor and the odorant.
Imagine having a neural net create quantum poetry.
That site has alot to answer for.
It's a cool theory, but it can't be the only affect, because it doesn't explain how different enantiomers of the same molecule could smell different. Carvone for example, smells like caraway or spearmint depending on which of two mirror image forms it's in. Each of these forms has the identical vibrations (both in terms of frequency, atomic displacement, and transition dipole), but would "lock in" differently with biological molecules, almost all of which are chiral (and pure enantiomers). The "shape specificity" hypothesis fits better with this observation. Of course it could still be a combination of the two. Once lodged on the surface of the receptor, the vibrations of the enantiomers are perturbed differently by the interactions with the enantiomeric receptor, leading to a separation of the vibational frequencies, but at that point I think you'd still have to argue that the shape is important.
The guy on the subway tonight had some serious quantum funk coming off him. It's as though every particle was trying desperately to get away and warn the others.
Given that smell is based on detecting quantum states, could consciousness also be connected to quantum states?
The sentient artificial intelligence is just around the corner.
who said it best. "You think that's air you're breathing? Hmmm."
[Trying to figure out some "+5 funny" remark tying this to quark "flavors"]
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
*Happy Campers* do *smell* the best.
His scents sense makes cents.
Really? To me, "putting his money where his nose is," is more easily interpreted as a euphemism meaning he's addicted to cocaine, and thus is a turn of phrase that should be avoided unless you want to be sued.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Gives a whole new meaning to strange or charming smells!
The war in Iraq is going really well. Just another few decades according to preznit Jenna.
You changed the outcome by observing it's smell.
"determined that the quantum physics involved makes sense. "
That would imply that one could make sense of any quantum physics. If you can make sense of it--you're clinically insane and shouldn't be left free to roam the internet.
OK rhombic. Look up Karl Landsteiner, who won the Nobel in 1930 for his work discovering the major blood groups and the development of the ABO system of blood typing. If you were remotely familiar with your science or history, you might suspect that immunology just *might* be part of this work. Specifically, he discovered that agglutination was an immunological reaction and that specificity of the antigen is so good, that one can discriminate racemic molecules. Of course this work was the most medically pressing at the time, but his greatest work is considered to be his work in antigen-antibody reactions.
As for confusing glycine and alanine, I confused the two in a quick fit of slashdot posting. The difference is a methyl group rather than a hydrogen atom in one carbon position. Biochem was over a decade ago, so sue me and go back to your little rock.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Say hello to my little sig.
Nah...
A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine."
On the smaller end of things, subatomic physics is in a glass of beer.
For instance: The bubble chamber detector for moving charged particles was invented by a physicist while he was sitting at a restaurant near the University of Michigan and wondering what started the bubbles in the beer forming.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
scex is based on the durability, flexibility and viscosity of the quantum slipstream (thank you "Star Trek" with all the techno babble...). Then my mind thought of Mr. Ears... "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pounded weak and weary..." when Charlie hexed me....
I have determined that the physicality, umm, err, the physics involved make scents... umm, sense, but legally, it does not pay to do this research to make cents.
Energy can be derived from various forms of matter, possibly even dark matter. But, let's for now lighten up the matter.
The verisimilitude of the vibratory effects only cause rash... umm, rationalization the matter. However, there will be others whose own findings will only serve to compound each others observations and distinked... umm, distinct findings.
Collectively, we may rise to being cunninglinguists....
captcha: careen (which is what this post is about to do....)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Yep, Landsteiner got the Nobel in 1930 for ABO typing-- nothing to do w/ chiral recognition. That work was done later with van der Scheer, in the 20's, not part of the ABO work & not what the Nobel was awarded for. I am remotely familiar w/ my science in this area ;). And a little bit of the history, too.
Understood about confusing glycine & alanine, but when you're pointing out chiral recognition and you choose as an example the one and only non-chiral amino acid, somebody's gonna call you on it.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
What fascinates me most about this subject is that our biological body figured out a way to make use of quantum physics. If this turns out to be true, it could really revolutionalise the way we see the human body, and even life itself. I saw a lecture the other day of another neuroscientist proclaiming he found evidence of quantum entanglement in the human brain, in parts that are supposedly linked to our conscience. How the hell does a biologal organism know about quantum entanglement? I ask you! (if it turns out to be true that is)
I mean, it might just be a sign of the times. We start to get a grasp on how quantum physics work, and suddenly evidence for quantummechanics is found everywhere. But still, it is interesting.
It might even make sense. Our body makes use of normal physics to operate, so why not quantum physics right? Except I never really got how our bodies, or life for that matter, managed to figure out the universe. Sure, we'll use positive ions to seperate the H2O from our intestines! All electrons please use the neural pathways to travel and carry messages for us!
This theory is "revolutionary" because biochemists use classical simulations. Quantum mechanics is very difficult to apply to such large systems in practice but these molecules definitely are governed by quantum mechanics like all molecules.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
I guess that is why the dog farts seem to ravel across the room so fast that they have the ability to knock people over.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
If this is true for the sense of taste as well, it would explain why so many things taste like chicken.
http://informationthreshold.blogspot.com - Information Threshold
I'm a graduate student in Computer-Aided Drug Design, and as part of my degree I did a research proposal on prediction of smell with computers.
a tes/2004/illpres/
Richard Axel and Linda Buck received their Nobel Prize in 2004 for Physiology or Medicine for "for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system". Note that this is not *only* for the discovery of the receptors, but also for the *way they work*. There are hundreds of receptors in mammals (almost 1,000 in mice, about 330 in humans) that have different selectivities for different odorant molecules and act combinatorially, that is, that the signal perceived by the brain is the result of the combination of receptors activated by the odorant. Given the large number of receptors, and that any number can be activated by an odorant, the variety of smells is huge, and on the other hand the promiscuity of the receptors allows for a chance of 2 dissimilar molecules having the same smell...
Some literature I suggest for someone interested:
- Nobel Prize illustrated presentation: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laure
(see also the Nobel Lectures therein)
- Unpredictability of smell: Sell, C. S. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2006, 45, 6254-6261.
I really think that the system of smell is already quite strongly explained by this theory, that also follows the classical binding+activation of receptors that drives traditional biochemistry and drug design.
I'm still surprised that some theoretical chemist/physicist didn't do QM calculations to prove the tunneling, and publish it in a leading peer-reviewed journal, if the theory is so sound...
There was a lot of work where Chemistry, Biology and Physics come together back in the 1980's trying to prove in vitro usage of tunneling mechanisms for several enzymes and energy chains. Proving in vivo was a "flash" usuallly. Some of these were hypothesized as also being phonon (yes phonon) assisted.
There is a reason why enzymes and proteins are shaped as they are - and q.m. tunneling is often part of the reason why.
There is just a gorgeous beauty to certain enzymes that is hypnotic to me.
peace, mark
I both agree and disagree with this article, and although it looks good, it smells bad.
I think i'll ask my cat what it's all about.
Have you read my journal today?
We all know how electrons, protons and neutrons look: like little colored shiny balls. They are usually primary colors, and one type is always red. Electrons are more difficult, sometimes they are also shiny balls and sometimes they are black dots. As for quarks, there are always three of them and they are conneted by a y shaped string. You should KNOW this stuff, you've seen it often enough on TV!!!
This has already been debunked with human psychophysics by Leslie Vosshall at The Rockefeller University.
_ 032604_b.php
s shall2004.pdf
Lay person article: http://www.rockefeller.edu/pubinfo/news_notes/rus
Primary research article (pdf): http://vosshall.rockefeller.edu/reprints/KellerVo
It irks me that this gets no mention anywhere in the goofball parent article.
"This is a big step forward," says Turin, who has now set up his own perfume company Flexitral in Virginia. He says that since he published his theory, "it has been ignored rather than criticized."
Well maybe not ignored; just fully tested and found lacking.
But Horsfield stresses that that's different from a proof of Turin's idea. "So far things look plausible, but we need proper experimental verification. We're beginning to think about what experiments could be performed."
They've already been performed and disproved the theory. Jeesh.
I always thought country music stunk.
My name is Luca.
I live on the second floor.
I live upstairs from you.
Yes, I think you've seen me before.
If you smell something late at night
Some kind of molecule,
Some kind of quantum function;
Just don't ask me what it was,
Just don't ask me what it was,
Because I haven't published yet.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
We thus have results that reinforce that, indeed, the smeller is the feller.
New Scientist ragazine actually trashed somebody pushing an unconventional theory?!
What, did the guy forget to buy a subscription or something?
Hell, NS promotes more whacko theories (and theoreticians) than any other new age freak rag I can think of.
Hold on just a minute. You are making quite a leap there, while acting as if you were just stating the obvious.
Unless you can do something along the lines of:
...you are just making an unsupported assumption there. You may think that free will doesn't sound like something that could come out of a system under the classical approximation, but that's nothing more than a hunch. There are undoubtedly countless logical consequences of classical physics that no one has worked out yet (and many times more that never will be worked out) so it is a bit premature to claim that something we can't even define isn't among them. (To put this in perspective, radio, quicksand, thunderstorms, slinkys, tubas, and static cling are all classical phenomena; do you really think you could fill in the rest of the list without missing many more than you capture?)
You're way off base on several other points as well (e.g. "instantiation" vs. "simulation" and the long ago exposed "Chinese Room" straw man), but I suspect you are only clinging to them because of your (unfounded) principle worry--that without some sort of magic escape hatch you are at risk of losing your free will to physics. Since this fear is unfounded, I won't bother with the secondary issues here.
--MarkusQ
Quote The quantum mechanics involved make sense Unquote
This does not verify that our noses in fact DO smell quantum-effects. This merely admits that the possibility exists.
I know this is splitting hairs WRT to TFA but glycine is the only amino acid that does not have L and D forms as having two hydrogens on its alpha carbon it is not asymmetric, see e.g. http://dl.clackamas.cc.or.us/ch106-05/optical.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_isomerism. Also, if IGGs was meant to mean IgGs, i.e. a subtype of antibodies I very much doubt they can recognise such a small molecule as glycine (unless it works as a hapten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapten
Not sure how this post is related to the topic but for here's a link to explain this comment: http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/104727.aspx
Turin has now formed a company to design odorants using his theory, and claims an advantage over the competition of two orders of magnitude in rate of discovery.
I think he means two "odors" of magnitude.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
FTA: It could explain why similarly shaped molecules can have very different smells, and molecules with very different structures can smell similar.
The guy has obviously never heard of hashing.
"So by process of elimination, the electron must taste like grape-ade."
Interesting. Maybe there is validity to the smells some people report when in a "haunted" place. Perhaps a quantum link to "apparitions" and the senses.
A book has already been written on Luca Turon's controversial theory of smell. it's a great read! http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Scent-Story-Perfume- Obsession/dp/0375759816/sr=8-3/qid=1165952555/ref= pd_bbs_3/105-9158177-5828428?ie=UTF8&s=books
If our brain can work with that as mentioned in the article. Then i wonder how nuch of our mind uses quantum computing. Okay a bit weird dough, but all these brain signals /chemics.
If they they are that sensitive then well..then its not out of reach for sure.
Hmmm how many qubits a brain would be i have no idea.
Also this would geve raise to other subjects like the human spirit.
Had the same idea?, well just call it entanglement.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.