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HWN Suggests

Why You Need Nostrils

Look in a mirror, and you'll notice that most sensory organs come in pairs. Having two eyes lets us perceive depth, and two ears are useful for locating sounds. But why two nostrils? Now neuroscientists have found evidence that this expands the range of scents we can smell.

For centuries, practitioners of yoga have known that one nostril breathes in air more rapidly than the other, and that the dominant nostril switches every few hours. (What happens is that one nasal passage swells, restricting air flow.) In fact, yogis advocate inhaling through the open nostril and breathing out through the constricted one, in the belief that this will stimulate the brain and "restore vitality"…

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Featured

 Nature’s Nose Job

New research has found some links between the shape of our noses and our geographic ancestry.

 The Nose Grows: What You Should Know

Pinocchio may have been a fairy tale, but it’s the unfortunate truth that your nose and ears appear to grow as we age. So what’s the implication if you live to a ripe old age? What can you do to minimize the effect? And, gulp, what does this mean if you’ve had a “nose job?”

 The nose, it seems, is protected by bacterial guards

They are similar to some of the bugs found in yogurt.

Articles of Interest

A Literary History of the Nose

“Nosology” has infiltrated literature across times and cultures, and those that wield it seem to me to be part of a secret club, a group of writers who have located a malleable symbolic power in this little lump on our faces.

Actually, Our Noses Come From Neanderthals, Researchers Claim

Now you know who to blame.

Ask a grown-up: why do we have two nostrils?

Another reason we have two nostrils is because of something called the "nasal cycle". While we don't consciously notice it, we breathe predominantly through one nostril at a time, and the other side becomes a bit congested and rests. You can test this yourself: try breathing through one nostril and then the other, and you'll probably find that one becomes stuffier than the other. This automatically changes over about four to six hours, so then the other side relaxes.

Climate shaped the human nose, researchers say

Variations in nose shape developed as a result of natural selection in response to different climates, new study suggests.

Follow Your Nose: The Science Behind Love, Sex, and Scent

From pheromones to that post-coitus funk, we investigate the relationship between sexual attraction and your olfactory organ.

How a Human Smell Receptor Works Is Finally Revealed

After decades of frustration, researchers have determined how an airborne scent molecule links to a human smell receptor.

How Do You Feel About Your Nose? The Link Between Nose Dissatisfaction and a Certain Mental Disorder

How do you feel about your nose? Love it? Hate it? Just fine with it? Interestingly, researchers say that they've found a link between people who are dissatisfied with their noses and a certain mental disorder...

How the Nose Copes With Nostril Rivalry

The head can be a competitive place. The eyes are known to battle with each other for dominance, as are the ears. Now the nose has joined the fray. Wen Zhou and Denise Chen of Rice University report that when the nostrils are exposed separately to different odors, the nose doesn’t smell a blend but rather alternates between the two odors, as if the nostrils were fighting it out for supremacy.

How the Nose Sniffs Danger in the Air

The next time someone says, “I smell danger in the air,” that might literally be true and the odor might be coming from you. At the tip of the noses of mammals, including humans, is a ball of nerve cells known as the Grueneberg ganglion, named after Hans Grueneberg, the scientist who described the structure in mice in 1973.

Never Mind Eyesight, Your Nose Knows Much More

The human eye can distinguish more than 2 million distinct colors. But scientists studying smell now say they have their vision colleagues beat: The human nose, they say, can distinguish more than a trillion different smells. Yes, trillion with a T. That new figure displaces a much more modest estimate. Until now, smell researchers have been saying the human nose can distinguish about 10,000 smells.

On Noses

The triangular pyramid projecting from the centre of the face has always had peculiar interest for me. In infancy I used it as a pocket, stowing therein an occasional bean filched from the cook’s store...

Researchers dig into why nose-picking is a common behavior

New research shows that a type of primate known as an aye-aye loves picking its nose. Researchers say the findings raise interesting questions about why nose-picking is such a common behavior.

Scents and Sensibilities: How Your Nose Actually Works

Smell is often considered the most primal and most evocative of our senses. But how does it really work, and what exactly is its secret language? That's exactly what Scents and Sensibilities explores -- a fascinating 90-minute program from the World Science Festival, covering everything from pheromones to the smell of fear to how scent influences behavior to the incredible sentimental value of smells.

The human nose can detect one trillion smells — not the 10,000 previously thought: study

Humans have a far greater sense of smell than previously thought, but daily showers and fridges, which mask bad odours, have reduced our ability to detect scents, scientists believe.

The Nose Knows

As the old adage goes, never judge a book by its cover. But what about judging people…by the shape of their nose? That is An image from Vaught's Practical Character Reader, published in 1902. Credit: Public Domain Review. An image from Vaught’s Practical Character Reader, published in 1902. Credit: Public Domain Review. precisely what “nasology” sought to accomplish. This 19th century pseudoscience proposed a link between an individual’s moral character and the physical contours of their nose.

The Real Reason Your Nose Runs When You Cry

No matter what's causing your tears—happiness, sadness, pain—it's inevitable that a good cry will leave you with a runny nose. We've all been in the same sobbing, sniffly place at one time or another. As it turns out, thanks to good ol' biology, there's no way to stop it from happening.

This smells promising: Nasal bacteria pump out a new antibiotic that kills MRSA

Humans, and the microbes that live inside us, could be the source of the next generation of antibiotics. German researchers just discovered an antibiotic produced by bacteria that inhabit our noses. This new antibiotic can kill MRSA, the poster child for drug resistance and the culprit behind the most pernicious hospital-acquired staph infections.

What the nose knows not

Now I know how essential it is, this taken for granted faculty. All of you with intact olfactory bulbs, please appreciate what you have. It is the sense of smell that accompanies you, orients you, gives fullness to so many experiences.

What the Nose Knows: The Underappreciated Olfactory Sense

Our understanding of the sensation and perception of smell was incomplete until the discovery of olfactory receptors in 1991. Now we know that when we take a whiff of fresh-brewed coffee, odor molecules from the coffee travel through our nostrils and bind to olfactory receptors in the nasal cavity, which then fire nerve signals to the olfactory bulb, where the stimulus of coffee’s smell is processed and relayed to the brain.

Why selfies can make your nose look bigger

Selfies are everywhere. They’re part of how we present ourselves, how we communicate — and increasingly, how we think about our appearance. And that isn’t always a positive thing.

Resources

10 Weird facts about Your Nose Anatomy

Humans don’t smell with their noses. It’s actually the brain that does the job. The more than 10 million olfactory nerves in your nose are only responsible for capturing smells and sending them to the brain, where the smells are then identified.

TeachMe Anatomy

The nose is an olfactory and respiratory organ. It consists of nasal skeleton, which houses the nasal cavity.