HWN Suggests

What Your Smell Says About You

What does your body’s smell reveal about you? A lot, as it happens: your age, your diet, your emotions, how robust your immune system is, if you’re getting sick—and if so, with which disease (including Covid-19). It can even reveal whom you might marry.

Your body is constantly radiating information—and this information leaks into the air as smells. Exactly how we detect and interpret smells remains a mystery, however.

Your body’s scent consists of three layers, all emanating from the skin. At the surface level, we fight stink with deodorants and showering. The middle level stems from cultural factors like diet and environment. Beneath those levels—under layers of sweat,…

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Featured

 The Cinderella of the Senses: Smell as a Window into Mind and Brain?

This claim might sound surprising. Human olfaction acquired a rather poor reputation throughout most of Western intellectual history. “Of all the senses it is the one which appears to contribute least to the cognitions of the human mind,” commented the French philosopher of the Enlightenment, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, in 1754.

 ‘Smells’ and ‘Smellosophy’ Review: What the Nose Knows

What is a smell? Is it a substance, or a perception.

Articles of Interest

We have now seen our sense of smell in action

Our scientific understanding of how smell works is fairly limited.

A 'Nose Dive' Into The Science Of Smell

Harold McGee is best-known for his books about food science. In his new book, 'Nose Dive,' he writes about why things smell the way they do — and the ways different chemicals combine to create surprising (and sometimes distasteful) odors.

A Powerful Way To Travel Through Your Sense Of Smell

The sense of smell is directly related to memory, acting as a prompt in recalling long-forgotten experiences. Scientists believe that our brain’s limbic system—home to the olfactory bulb, which recognizes different smells—contributes to our mood, memory, behavior, and emotion. Humans can identify and remember 10,000 different scents.

Artificial Intelligence Is Developing A Sense Of Smell: What Could A Digital Nose Mean In Practice?

We already know we can teach machines to see. Sensors enable autonomous cars to take in visual information and make decisions about what to do next when they’re on the road. But did you know machines can smell, too?

Can 'smell tests' screen for Covid-19? Here's what the research says.

any businesses and workplaces are relying on temperature checks to screen for the novel coronavirus, but new research suggests a different—and perhaps surprising—approach: smell tests,

Cancer has a smell. Someday your phone may detect it.

Our sense of smell is still a mystery. But that’s not stopping research on robot noses.

Four reasons why some people become ‘super smellers’ – from pregnancy to genetic differences

Medically known as hyperosmia, super smellers are people who have a heightened sense of smell compared to the average person. Some super smellers may be more sensitive to pleasant smells, while others may be more affected by unpleasant odours. Hyperosmia is relatively rare, so there’s still much that researchers don’t know about the condition.

Going viral: What Covid-19-related loss of smell reveals about how the mind works

Anosmia, the technical term for the once relatively unfamiliar loss of one’s ability to smell, is now all too common. It has become a critical diagnostic marker of Covid-19.

How marketers target your nose

The quiet but powerful industry of scent branding.

I Lost My Sense of Smell, and My Whole Life Has Changed

Temporarily losing your sense of smell is a tell-tale symptom of the coronavirus, but Sabrina Hentzgen lost hers for good after a traumatic brain injury. Since then, she’s been living in a world where cooking and eating is no longer enjoyable, and she misses the salty scent of the ocean. Here, she talks about how the condition affects her daily life.

Let’s obliterate the myth that humans have a bad sense of smell

Humans have excellent olfaction and can smell more than a trillion odors.

People Are Trying a Questionable Therapy to Get Back Their Sense of Smell

Here’s what the evidence says about this newly-popular method.

The five smells Americans hate most (and how to get rid of them)

We consulted with experts to find homemade solutions for these stinkers, but you should keep in mind that there’s a limit to household products, and sometimes you just have to go for more concentrated, specialized solutions.

The scent of sickness: 5 questions answered about using dogs – and mice and ferrets – to detect disease

Some animals have highly developed senses of smell. They include rodents; dogs and their wild relatives, like wolves and coyotes; and mustelids – carnivorous mammals such as weasels, otters and ferrets. These species’ brains have three or more times more functional olfactory receptor neurons – nerve cells that respond to odors – than species with less keen smelling abilities, including humans and other primates.

The Science Of Smell And Memory

Why can a smell trigger such a powerful memory? Biological anthropologist Kara Hoover explains what's going on in the brain when we smell, how smell interacts with taste, and why our sense of smell is heightened in the winter.

The senses: Smell and taste

‘Everything smelled of rotting flesh, even perfume’. How tiny defects in our sensory system can have enormous consequences on how we perceive the world.

Uncork the Nose's Secret Powers

How sweet it is to smell. The nose is a hardworking organ, with powers much greater than most people realize. A keen sense of smell offers more flavors, more safety, even more happiness. But be warned—human olfactory powers degrade as the years go by, resulting in a detectable loss by the time many people reach their 30s.

Welcome to Our Museum of Smells

The restaurant critic Tejal Rao recently created a “personal smell museum” of her life in Los Angeles, cataloging the aromas she encountered in her home and her office, the scent of vanilla she detected when driving past a commercial bakery. I asked her why she thought a smell museum was such a vital way to document her life.

What Can Covid-19 Teach Us About the Mysteries of Smell?

The virus’s strangest symptom has opened new doors to understanding our most neglected sense.

What does space smell like?

Spoiler: a lot of other planets smell like farts.

What Smells Can Teach Us About History

How we perceive the senses changes in different historical, political, and cultural contexts. Sensory historians ask what people smelled, touched and tasted—all to learn more about the past.

Why Do Most Languages Have So Few Words for Smells?

And why do these two hunter-gatherer groups have so many?

Resources

9 Weird Human Body Smells and What They Mean

You know the moment when you catch a whiff, and you have to stop to ask yourself an awful question: Is that me? Most of the time, it’s nothing. Bodies are weird, and honestly, rude about how they communicate. But every so often, a new smell isn’t random. It’s actually a signal worth paying attention to before you scroll yourself into a morbid panic.