Each of us has, in our nose, about six million smell receptors of around four hundred different types. The distribution of these receptors varies from person to person -- so much so that each person's sense of smell may be unique. In research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Weizmann Institute scientists report on a method of precisely characterizing an individual's sense of smell, which they call an "olfactory fingerprint."
The implications of this study reach beyond the sense of smell alone, and range from olfactory fingerprint-based early diagnosis of degenerative brain disorders to a non-invasive test for matching donor organs.
The method is based on how similar or different two odors are from one another. In the first stage of the experiment, volunteers were asked to rate 28 different smells according to 54 different descriptive words, for example, "lemony," or "masculine." The experiment, led by Dr. Lavi Secundo, together with Dr. Kobi Snitz and Kineret Weissler, all members of the lab of Prof. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute's Neurobiology Department, developed a complex, multidimensional mathematical formula for determining, based on the subjects' ratings, how similar any two odors are to one another in the human sense of smell. The strength of this formula, according to Secundo, is that it does not require the subjects to agree on the use and applicability of any given verbal descriptor. Thus, the fingerprint is odor dependent but descriptor and language independent.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Friday July 03 2015, @09:03PM
Help, I've fallen into a vat of quack medicine and I can't get up.
I'll go with the genetic tests if its all the same to you.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Type44Q on Friday July 03 2015, @10:16PM
What's the definition of confusion?
Twenty blind lesbians at a fish market...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @11:07PM
Gross!
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Friday July 03 2015, @11:10PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @01:34AM
it's to early to make a coherent comment, nevermind ...
the thing enabling us to smell is pretty close to the overall brain.
i think (smell) the volatile airborne molecules do play a bigger role on our perception of the world, consciously or not.
also the smell receptor isn't very good at linear data detection.
it needs a "delta" or difference to be most efficient.
since humans constantly seem to be subliming themselves, one human can completely forget his/her smell ejected into the surrounding.
successful (rich?) people seem to "emit" a air (lol) of confidence ... unconsciously basking in their own .. stink : )
it think non-smell aware people (people who don't know about their own ..err....aura, surrounding them) see the confidence
and register the smell and voila ... "house is spelt h-o-u-s-e" in smell language, blissfully unaware that their own aura .. errr...
smell is being blasted by a completely different ..errr...stink.
now the question, i reverse, can a "clean" person, that is a person who emits just a tiny little ..errr... stink, induce a (non existing) smell
in another person just with his/her behavior?
now going back to the "humans are constantly sublimating themselves" thus inhaling themselves and the smell-enabling-organ
being so close to the brain ... see title
have a smelly day!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_%28phase_transition%29 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Justin Case on Saturday July 04 2015, @11:50AM
I have a very limited "smell vocabulary". Usually when others report smelling something, I smell nothing. Among the smells I can identify:
Smoke
Perfume (AKA drenched in way too much perfume)
Hospital
Sewer
Rotten
Yeah, most of these smells are Not Good. So, if I can smell you, you probably stink, and horribly.
I think most people communicate, subconsciously, through smell. I suspect it has to do with attraction and arousal. I'm missing all those messages, and I don't know what I'm "putting out there".
Do I need deodorant? I don't know, and nobody will tell me, because they're being "polite". But if I did, how would I know which brand is working?
It seems like an unrecognized handicap. At least, any time I've mentioned it to doctors etc. they just kinda shrug.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Saturday July 04 2015, @11:10PM