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Scientists Closer To Creating Artificial Noses
Scientists at MIT have moved closer to being able to create an artificial nose after finding a way to mass-produce smell receptors. The MIT RealNose project seeks to recreate the most complex and least-understood of the five senses: smell. The team plans to work with researchers around the world to develop a portable microfluidic device that can identify various smells, including diseases with unique odors, such as diabetes and certain cancers.
a nose is just a limited, selective set of chemoreceptors or whatever. So instead of trying to produce similar ones, just take two of those "everything sensing" plates that they said can identify any type of matter and stick em inside a silicone nose and call it a nose. It'd work better than trying to replicate the way organic ones work.
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Smelling these are pretty much useless, but I wouldn't at all mind being able to smell contagious diseases like the flu, which will give me a good warning to stay away from that person. I'd rather feel crappy for a few seconds than for a few days.
Just like feeling pain - it may be annoying, but in most cases you are going to be better off than if you didn't feel its early warning.
Dogs are known to be able to sense illness in humans and I guess their extreme sense of smell plays a part. This is an interesting development - more portable than a dog and able to report what is being smelled (as opposed to 'woof' or a wagging tail).
Web Design Guy - Perth
I lost my sense of smell in a head injury 5 years ago. My sense of taste was not affected.
Contrary to what you might think, I don't miss it much. In fact, in the city, most smells are bad. I'd say the situations where I am aware that I am not sensing a bad smell (cig smoke, urine, exhaust, chemicals, dog poo, etc) outnumber the ones where I am missing a good smell (flowers, perfume, dinner, the smell after rain, choc chip cookies) probably about five to one.
The worst part really is acting like I can smell things when I cannot because I don't want to be the freak.
the most complex and least-understood of the five senses, smell
There is only one sense, and that sense is touch. Think about it.
I lost my sense of smell entirely for a couple of years. It has since returned, though not all that strongly. You don't realize what it's like unless it happens. Yeah, I could go into a barn and not be bothered and if my dog farted I didn't care, but I couldn't smell gas (the kind they sell you to heat up the stove), or anything burning, or sweat, or gasoline fumes (suggesting accompanying odorless CO), or spoilage in food that otherwise looked okay, or mildew, or that very special burning plastic stink of a hot CPU. Use your imagination for more 'exotic' issues.
It's damn dangerous to not have your sense of smell. I also lost interest in food. I couldn't understand at first why I needed more and more garlic until S.O. complained and I realized something was wrong. It sneaks up on you (just like fat!)
A couple of years later we were driving from Spokane to Seattle, a boring 300 mile trip in I-90, and my S.O. said, "You probaby can't tell this, but..."
"A skunk!" I said.
I've never been so happy to smell a skunk in my life! So I'd be happy with a plug-in replacement.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Sort of related, I have no sense of smell, at all. I was probably close on 20 years old before that fact actually sunk in. I thought it was a sense that people learned to use, like learning to read and write, that I would figure it all out some time later in life. Not to be.
From a perspective of never having known smell, the idea of being able to do so is intriguing. At the very least it would mean I could definitively know whether I need to spend more on deodorant or less :-)
Oddly enough, I have had dreams where I can smell perfectly fine, I don't know how this state of mind compares with the real world experience though.
Ever since I read Hong on the Range. Smellin Llewellyn was my favorite villan. He's basically an outlaw with a cybernetic nose implant that allows him to track anything with the faintest scent. Comes in pretty handy on the cyber-frontier. God I loved that book.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I'm quite positive it has made a huge difference to the way food tastes.
I can tell the difference between sweet, sour, and salty. If food doesn't fit into one of those categories then it doesn't have any taste, texture becomes far more important in that circumstance.
The end result is that people place me in the 'fussy' category.
Does holding my nose make any difference? None at all. :-)
I'm guessing a little, but I think when people have a cold they are pretty much experiencing what I do every day.