I’ve never seen any good outline of how smells are differentiated by any organized physiological scheme, as, say, color is in vision. This would say they still don’t know much about any such system.
Well, it appears somebody is working on the problem anyhow (at CalTech – the engineering people who also almost brought you sights and sounds from Mars ).
And as far as smelling almonds, I can eat them without smelling them, but I just smelled some close to my nose, and yeah, I can smell them. I’ve always considered my sense of smell as normal but not acute.
thank you all for your answers and comments. It’s really been informative. My nose has always smelled everything it got near (mostly good, sometimes very bad)! SO - your “nose” stories are appreciated.
I heard something recently on the the radio about a doctor who deals with people who have a diminished or absent sense of smell. He was struck by the large amount of fire-fighters coming to him, did a study, and found that some very large percentage (the exact figure escapes me) of fire-fighters had an impaired sense of smell. He also found that a larger than normal amount of fire-fighters were hospitalized for food poisoning, something that a functioning sense of smell helps most of us avoid.
I’ve got the flu. I cannot taste, or smell ANYTHING. Interesting, it’s been at least 10 years since I lost both of those senses( albeit temporarily), and I read this post today. Fascinating ( cocking one eyebrow )
Last night’s Beef Wellington was wasted on me. However, it’s meaty and flaky twin was spectacular on New Year’s Eve…
Cartooniverse
" If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel. "
I know of at least 4 (not including myself) that can’t smell at all. One was from a head injury on duty (he retired on medical…lucky stiff). Dunno about impared (not total loss), though.
I’ve never had food poisoning. I have, however, had more than my fair share of rancid lunchmeat and sour milk. I have to have someone smell milk for me if it is past the sell-by date before I’ll drink it. If no one is there to pre smell it for me, down the drain it goes. If its before the sell-by date, I’ll drink it. Personally, I think it tastes like ranch dressing when its sour, but then again I’ve never liked ranch dressing in my rasin bran.
Jeremy…
Nobody ever calls me after they’ve done something smart.
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