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Human Sense of Smell Underestimated
Benjamin Long writes to note a study, by a team of neuroscientists and engineers, that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail — an ability that most had assumed only animals possessed. Furthermore, the study demonstrated for the first time that humans make use of differential information from the two nostrils. The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail. Here is the abstract of the paper in Nature Neuroscience. From the article: "The humans, however, still sniffed much more slowly than dogs, which may partially account for canines' greater efficiency at scent tracking. [A commentator] says that despite their relatively sluggish speed, the fact that subjects improved with training is noteworthy. 'I think that shows the effect of our distinctively different behavior in actually using this sense,' he says. 'The dog [has] been doing this its whole life, and humans [were] just asked to plunge in the first time they've ever done it.'"
The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail. This just proves students will do anything for $10
If you can read this, it's already too late.
that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail -- an ability that most had assumed only animals possessed.
Err, I recently smelled something burning. I walked through my house using my nose to follow the scent trail, and locate the single light bulb in the chandelier that had a tiny piece of plastic stuck to it that was burning (from a Christmas decoration).
How do these researchers think I performed this amazing feat? Got out my hound dog and had him sniff around?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Benjamin Long writes to note a study, by a team of neuroscientists and engineers, that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail
My first job after graduating from college was working as a computer programmer at a US Air Force base. I worked in the main building for our section of the base and our colonel one day was having a VIP come by to visit him. He walked out to the main area and smelled something burning. Convinced that his canine sense of smell had saved the day and wanting to show off for his visitor, he promptly called the base fire department and demanded that they send a truck out to investigate "the burning wires smoldering within one of the walls". The base fire department dispatched a truck and the firemen investigated and told the colonel that what he smelled was burnt popcorn from the break room and there was nothing smoldering within the walls. The colonel then did the only thing that a military man who has just embarassed himself could do. He promptly banned microwave popcorn.
when I quit smoking a few years back after having smoking since I was about 13 (and raised by two smokers) I recovered my sense of smell and taste (they are certainly intertwined)
My sense's of taste and smell are so actute now - it's amazing! I can smell people smoking a few cars in front of me - peoples aftershave and perfumes are most times extreme and putrid (I believe it must be animal urine in them)
The weirdest experience was the re-living of memories evoked through smell, that I had long forgotton. Apparently, smell is the sense most connected to memory, I literally feel younger than ever (36yrs old in reality) Now I can smell the deeper complexities within freshly cut grass that I had completely forgotton. Quit that damn cigarette - you really do get your life back (lots more money too)
One thing I noticed, during bootcamp was that my sense of smell became incredibly accute. While, I'll award the reader with the fact that I was a prior smoker to bootcamp, I will say that non-smokers DEFINATELY noticed the difference as well.
While it's not likely we as a society will retort back to nature in a sense, I will say, the body naturally cleans itself and the only reason a "bum" stinks as bad as he does is in relation to all the non-natural environment surrounding him. Not only that, but we are so used to the man made scents, that natural scents tend to stand out even more.
For example... while some city women will think a man from the country is being a sexist pig who treats women like objects... the fact is, men CAN smell women and from a considerable distance away.
OK. Let me stress this, becuase this is when it hit me like a brick during boot camp. It was almost a "holy shit do I have a Marvel Comic superhero nose?", no I don't and you don't either. But, when at a club, a female can be practically touching you and you might smell her perfume. In the work place, a female sitting in the next cubicle might not make her presence known until she makes sufficient noise to catch your attention....
After five weeks into boot camp, a female division walked past the barracks we were at, and walked up stairs. I would accurately judge the distance to about 50 feet away, and every single guy in the barracks literally smelled the girls. We didn't have to hear them. We didn't have to see them. We could smell them and knew they were there. The scents were distinguishable too, not just a generic feminine hormone release into the air. If two girls were in the next room, the guys three rooms down could smell two different scents.
When I was a kid, females weren't allowed to go hunting, irregardless of what time of month or whatever they washed their bodies with. Until boot camp, I always thought it was a wives tale that women gave off that much odor... but I swear to you. Yes, if I am able to smell a female just as well as see her from 50 feet away... then a deer or buck with much better noses can certainly smell a human female from 100 yards away. A man could probably smell the presence of a female much further than 50 feet away, it's just that's the distance I know for a fact and even at 50 feet, the scent was unbelievably strong. How far away before it becomes a hint? The girl might as well have showered in perfume and stood two inches behind me.
Nowadays, away from the lack of everyday luxuries and eminties, inhalation of cigarette smoke, car exhaust, overwhelming stench of plastics and asphalt... no, I couldn't tell you if a girl with no perfume is sitting five feet over in the next cubicle. It's somewhat sad. But, you are capable of doing it. Most people who go on long hunting trips in the wilderness know what I'm talking about. Without all this crap we deal with, this man made crap, nature gave us some pretty interesting abilities that have been long taken for granted or the use is nolonger really needed.
The scent of the girls is what blew me away the most. So vivid, so strong so unexpected. But, I also realized that a lot of other things that might have been overlooked or not processed certainly was while in boot camp. Such as the bed of flowers outside the barracks... yeah, you can smell those things. In modern day life, much of those scents are still hitting our nose, but if they remain being processed it's either at a subconscious level or outright ignored altogether. Anyway, it doesn't surprise me that a group of college students was able to smell a trail of chocolate in the lawn. Doesn't surprise me one bit.
Crystal Fire and they had an interesting anecdote about the beginnings of semi-conductor research. In the late 1930's early 1940s the scientists at Bell labs were experimenting with silicon to see if they could build rectifiers and other electronic components out of it. At the time there really wasn't any theory about how these things might have worked. Some silicon rods showed semi-conductive behavior, some didn't. Finally they found one rod that showed strong semi-conductive behavior. They couldn't figure out what it was that made this rod special until the scientists and machinist who worked on it said that when it was cut or ground it gave off the same smell as one of the old carbide lamps that were used on many automobiles until the late 1920s. One of the chemists realized that what they were smelling was trace amounts of phospine gas, which meant that the rod has phosphorous in it. This was a surprise as the levels of phosphorous in the sample were so small that they didn't show up in a spectrographic analysis, it was the noses of the scientists and machinist that gave them the clue that the proper trace impurities in silicon would enhance the semi-conductive behavior.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Richard Feynman (famous caltech physicist) documented his observations of this in his autobiography too; where he demonstrated for friends that he could smell out recently handled books in a book case.
Many people who suspect their spouses of affairs also observe this ability too (knowing in which rooms a guest's been in).
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone; and it's pretty sad that the obvious gets passed as new, novel research.
I'm going to have to believe your story purely based on your user name.