July 23, 2025 • 58 mins
If you are human, you do not consciously clock most odors. Yet these molecules still inform, influence, and inspire your unconscious behaviors. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore a question most folks are too frightened to ask: Can you smell death?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dyland, the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
argue you are here and that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Let's all pause for
a moment and give ourselves a sniff, a sniff test.
How are we smelling? Guys? How we smell.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Fresh out of the shower? Baby? Say the little perfumeish
going on?
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Did you put some of those pheromones on? I did
some of the musk. Since then you have described.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Directly into my pits otherwise.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
From your crevassist the Australia, make sure it happens. Yeah,
and I still smell like an airplane. Do with that
what you will, folks, Uh jet fuel? No, the inside
of an airport?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Okay? Cool?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
The passenger part. We've all encountered someone who, for one
reason or another, doesn't smell amazing and we're not. Look,
we're not better than anybody else. We're not immune to this.
Either after a workout or enough time without a shower
or toothbrush encounter. Pretty much everybody acquires some kind of
(01:41):
not entirely pleasant odor. I got to ask is, without
pulling out specifics, what's the weirdest smell you've ever encountered
from a person, a stranger, or a loved one, Like
the weirdest not pleasant smell.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
That's a very personal question.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Then it's weird once you've had kids, because you know,
the kids make all the stuff that has the smells
when they're little, tiny babies, and you just kind of
you either get used to it or you know you're
gonna be vomiting in your mouth a little bit every while.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Yeah, a combination of the two. You know, they're not
mutually exclusive. We're not very pervious.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I don't know. Children smells are a thing.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I'm currently slung up with a little tiny puppy named Apollo,
and he was described to me as smelling like cotton candy.
I don't think I smell that, but who am I
to judge?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Maybe you guys have different brands of cotton candy, you know,
what I mean. I wonder if there's barbecue cotton candy.
I wonder if there's flavored cotton candy. An idea would
be good.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Tejine, cotton candy.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Ben, what is the strangest smell you've ever smelled on somebody?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
A sickly sweet medicinal aroma in a not quite cotton candy,
but cloying would say, and very strong. This wasn't in
this country, but it did fill up the bus we
were traveling on to the point where other people on
(03:10):
the bus were talking about it and eventually determined it
was this one elderly gentleman in the back and had
a conversation with him. Don't know what happened to him,
but we had to have that conversation outside because this aura,
his old factory aura, was so pervasive that it filled
(03:34):
up the bus. So it had really have medical condition, That's.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
What I was gonna say, Man, I have I can't.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
I'm spacing on the name, and they're probably multiple, but
I have heard of certain medical conditions causing someone to
have kind of a perma smell.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And I'm trying to think. I think it was like
a plot point. I know what it was. It was
in that.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Paul Giamatti Christmas movie that I'm forgetting the name of,
where he's like a kind of a curmudgeonly professor, came
out a couple years ago. It's like very hal Ashby,
kind of seventies, very good, and his character has this
condition where he's constantly smelly, and it comes up a
lot in terms of how it affects his social life.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, that's rough. Actually, we have an update from Dylan
on this. That film is The Leftovers, Thank you, Tennessee.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Very good.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
If you're into seventies movies like Harold and Maude, I
highly recommend that.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And this is a weird conversation. Always we are not doctors,
but I think we can all agree that what constitutes
a bad smell can be culturally dependent and in most cases,
thankfully unpleasant aromas can be easily addressed. But how far
do these bad smells go? What messages do they carry?
(04:46):
While we were creating our earlier episode on human pheromones,
we ran into an incredibly strange question, which is this,
can you smell death?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
I mean, people always talk about the smell of death,
and we can certainly smell dead things.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Right, but is this a step further than that, I
think it might be.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Here are the facts smell, the good, the bad, the ugly.
First things first, let's get it out there. Let's just
all be honest with each other together in this digital
room tonight. Earth kind of stinks, you, guys. Not always
in a bad way. It's just there's a lot of
(05:33):
smelly stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
There's a lot of stuff going on, guys. Look at
all the plant life around you, especially here in the
great Metropolis of Atlanta, in the greater area, there's so
many trees and different kinds of trees and plants that
the smells of nature are generally considered pleasing. But I
always think about that one special tree if you head
(05:57):
on down towards Georgia Tech and it just gives off
this smell that your body knows like something's weird with
that one.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, as Georgia Sagalum. I'm familiar with that. Matt.
Did you ever see the Mitchell and web sketch about
Queen Victoria? Yeah, yes, Okay, we're audios, So Matt's given
the best thought here, Nola. Are you familiar with that one?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, for sure, Big Mitchell and Webman.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Everything go out and watch that one if you haven't
seen it yet.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yes, yeah, yeah, well actually we'll probably each independently rewatch
it after this. What a banger. Yeah, The earth is filled.
Wherever you go in the natural environment, the earth is
filled with countless small molecules of odor that are responsible
for all sorts of good and bad smelling things. And
(06:47):
if you are human, your nose has a superpower just
for these molecules. Sucks air into your nostrils over these
bony ridges called turbinates, and then the air travels over
millions and millions of receptor neurons that sit on a
thing called the old factory epithelium. It's about the size
(07:08):
of a stamp. I'm touching the part of my nose
where I think this is. It's on the roof of
your nasal cavity. So when you when you snarf up
and huff the air, these cells perk up when those
molecules hit them, which means that technically, yes, whenever you
smell something, you're also kind of tasting it. So please
(07:29):
think about that the next time someone farts in a
crowded elevator.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And also think about that doggo that's currently sitting on
your lap knol.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Hasn't happened yet, I haven't caught away. Well, yeah, I've
been told by others.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, what I mean is your dog is catching a
whiff of whatever is going on around you. Because we've
got true, we've got about six million of those receptors
Ben's talking about. Doggos have like two hundred three hundred
million of those same receptors, so that it.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Does blow my mind sometimes how they're not just constantly overwhelmed,
and some of them are. And this little fella so
far can be he's got a little bit of a
nervous twitch when there's too much stuff going on.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So smell.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Everything's got the new car smell.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
It's true, it's true.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
He does do this funny thing though, where he'll like
really warm up to you, and then you'll leave the
room and you'll come back and he'll have immediately forgotten you,
and it's like re scared of you, which is cute
but also a little frustrated.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
There's a lot of stuff going on, you know, and
dogs treat smell the way that humans treat site. It
is their primary way of experiencing the world, which makes
them interesting for a conversation later this evening anyway, Long
story short, These receptor cells catch wind of these molecules
(08:45):
and send signals to your brain. Your brain is fantastic
at parsing this info. A great analogy for this is
like a guy who's worked at a record shop forever
and customers come in and a just a snatch of
a song, and immediately the record store guy is like, oh, yeah,
(09:06):
Leonard skinnered that smell. And this is how your brain works.
Your brain is an amazing library. Essentially, it takes information
from these olfactory receptors. It references everything it's encountered before.
One of the most common examples you'll hear about when
we talk about smell is going to be the scent
(09:29):
of something like fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Okay, we
all know what that smell is like, or hopefully most
of us know what that smell is like. But that
smell is a combination of a bunch of other chemicals
and molecules and distinct smells working together. Your brain doesn't
go oh, these are seventy plus smells. You don't consciously
(09:52):
think that your brain does all the work for you
and then boom. Instead of knowing specific chemical reactions, you
just realize someone nearby is baking, or you're in a
grocery store where they've piped in that fake scent.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Yeah, or even like you know, to the previous episode
we did on pheromones and such, you sort of get
this general sense of what a combination of smells represents,
even beyond like a tangible thing like that. The thing
that gets conjured could be a memory or like a
time in your life or something, rather than specifically referring
to what the various components that make up the smell
(10:29):
might be.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, this is one of the reasons a lot of
people have an aversion to what's described as the smell
of a hospital. Yeah, even though a hospital doesn't not
one single hospital smells exactly like another hospital, but there.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Is a vibe.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
There's a combination of a lot of these different molecules, right,
that float around and then they get associated, as we're
talking about here, with a memory of a specific time
you're in one, which is probably not for a good thing.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
A big part of this is memory. As we mentioned
in our pheromones episode, smell is the primary encoder of
long term memory for humans, or it's one of the
big players, not for nothing to prove base an entire
novel on this remembrance of things past. Your brain is
so big on memorizing good and bad experiences, and it
(11:23):
associates those experiences with smell, So smell becomes kind of
like your search engine for your library of moments past,
and scientists call this olfaction associated memory. Cubans right now
can recognize about ten thousand different odors, which sounds like
(11:44):
a lot until we think about how many other smells
are out there. And to Matt's point, no two people
smell anything exactly the same. Since different folks have unique experiences,
they can also have different responses to smell. If you
grew up on a horse farm, right, other people may
say horsepoop stinks, but when you smell horse manure, you
(12:08):
might think of warm, pleasant spring afternoons, you know, feeding
apples to old man Jehosah fat, which is a horse
I made up.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Oh yeah, good old fella, you know it.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
My mom often described things as tasting the way things smell,
which is.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
You can kind of wrap your head around it.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
It doesn't quite it's counterintuitive, you know, on paper, but
I think we can all kind of get what that means, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
The seventy percent of taste is smell essentially. With that,
do you guys have examples of smells that other people
might not consider great that have good memories for you.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
I can think of an example of a smell that
basically kind of reminded by what you said at the
top of the show, smelling like an airplane. The smell
of jet fuel makes me feel like traveling. It reminds
me of trips of the past. It reminds me of
being a kid and being on flights and going to
see my mom. And that smell that you that many
(13:05):
people could find you know at it are unpleasant.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I always associate with positive memories too.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I experienced this the other day, went out to a
restaurant and after parking and getting out of the vehicle,
there's this really strong smell that myself and the people
with couldn't quite place, and then we realized, oh, it's
like super fresh petroleum based paint. And it reminded me
of a two stroke engine or one of these smaller
(13:33):
engines on like an ATV, which then and it gave
me I was I was. We were all remarking how
strong and kind of gross it was, but at the
same time it was bringing all of these thoughts of
me getting on my friends, you know, atv in the
backyard and driving around like we're crazy kids.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
But it reminds me of the term sickly sweet people
use sometimes, you know, to describe kind of like a
negative smell that also is kind of positive.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, cloying perhaps. And I'm right there with you, bet
and with you Nol, because I have a personal example,
without getting into too many specifics, that I think speaks
to both of these stories. I will always be transported
by the smell of exhaust, especially exhaust from a vehicle
(14:24):
without a catalytic converter, because it reminds me of times
when I was having adventures, and to be fair, misadventures
in countries where catalytic converters are not a thing. So
when I smell that, instantly, I'm back there, just for
a second, I'm transported. I'm transformed. And this happens to
all of us because the memory a scent resurrects has
(14:49):
a neurochemical effect on you. It triggers feel good chemicals
in your brain. Null I'm smelling a jet fuel, or
I'm smelling fuel from aviation, and immediately Now, I'm not
all the way in the present. Part of me is
in the past, on exciting journeys and adventures. I'm Matt.
(15:11):
I'm smelling this thing that logically to me in the
present day may not be the most amazing smell, but
the me of the past, that past, that past is
on an ATV having adventures. This is so cool. It
also reminds me of our conversation previously, which explains just this.
(15:34):
The old factory associated memories are the reason that long
term partners tend to dig each other's stank, even when
the rest of the world is like, oh my god,
what is this guy? Human? Jym sock.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Another one that comes to mind is like the smell
of the kind of the rotten smell of the ocean
on the West coast, Like it's almost like a oceany
low tide sewer smell. And I've always associated that with
travels to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I go throughout
my life and that smell whenever it comes back, it
sort of mixes with the salts and a little bit
(16:09):
of that kind of funky, you know, sewer ocean smell,
like rotting fish or something. That I it brings back
positive memory, So it's an interesting thought experiment.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Kind of like New York described in spells. We'd love
to hear you describe your city in a smell, by
the way, conspiracy realist conspiracy Didiheartradio dot Com, New York,
I would say, fresh bait bagels, some fry meat, some urine,
and some cannabis New York.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, man, maybe a little horse manure if you're near
the park.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
There we go. There's an interesting thing we should mention.
By the way, the opposite can be true here as well.
And let's see if any of us have a specific
example of this. Most people enjoy the smell of certain
flowers or plant life other than linden trees, although Matt,
I imagine there are some people who toy the smell
(17:05):
of linden trees. You might like citrus fruits as well,
or you at least find these smells in offence tolerable. However,
your memory and the way it links the smell is
so powerful that if you associate a good smell with
a certain traumatic event, you will react adversely to it,
(17:25):
you know, like something bad happened to you. As a
child that you associate with the smell of lemon cream
cheese bars, and everybody else finds them an inoffensive I'll
say it sea tier level dessert. But you go to
a place one of.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
My favorites.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Seer wow.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
S tier here.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Alright, Well, more lemon bars for you guys.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I have a specific memory event well we'll get into it,
but yeah, very positive memory of those think.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But that's the thing. It's it's somewhat arbitrary. It's case
by case. Everybody's unique.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Here.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
If someone was around a lemon bar when something terrible
happened to them, like they got news of a loved
when passing, or they stepped on a landmine. I don't
know what kind of situation this is, but they like,
you know, every time they smell a lemon bar, They're like,
where's my left foot? I forgot about that.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
This party sucks, Ben, I have a feeling right again
in to some of this, but I'll just kind of
prime the pump here. When I think of the idea
of smelling death too, I often think of the reports
of people experiencing strokes or certain brains elms as smelling
almonds or smelling burning hair or things like that.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
That's always blown my mind.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
And every time I get a whiff of a little
burning something, I'm always like, oh, no, is a meaning the.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Time just to say, on lemons for a second, I
have a specific thing that I think you guys might
feel to say, way about lemon bars, but lemon pepper wings.
I can't stand the smell of it.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Oh it's a very oppressive smell.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
A delicious taste, not a good chemically stings the nostrils, yes,
very much.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But oh I have specific memories of discarded lemon pepper,
like clearly lemon pepper wings, just the bones and stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But you can still strewn around Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Are you traveling back there now?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I think it might be a
lemon extract of some sort in that case too, because.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
I almost don't think a lemon is involved now that
I'm thinking about it, and a lemon pepper, because there's
no lemon to it, to be honest. It's something that's
I like it as a taste, it's got some zing,
but it's a chemically I.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Can feel it in the back of my back, top
of my mouth right now. You know this is also folks,
when you come to Atlanta. Yes, the stereotypes are true.
Lemon pepper wet rules the day. It does taste better
than it smells, and as they'll pointed out, it is
a city riddled with chicken wing bones.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Yes, it is apparently at its best made with dried
lemon zest, black pepper and salt. So there you go,
shout out to the local the locals got the best
lemon pepper wet and look it up literally, you type
that in it is. It is Atlanti centric and it's
very good, but maybe not for everybody. Apparently the best
wings in town I've yet to try come from a
famous gentlemen's club.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Oh yeah, the Cheetah Right Olivia, I think it's magic
city has the best wings time for some research boys.
So this also shows us that old factory associated memory
can be a matter of individual perception. But this is
the important part for our conversation tonight. Despite that individuation,
(20:55):
there are certain sense that humans overwhelmingly agree are good
or bad. Some of these smells are noted as really
good or really bad even when a human experiences them
for the first time, which means that certain affinity four
or avoidance of different smells is hardwired into you. It
(21:19):
is instinctual. You are not that far removed from the
ancestral days of primates of old, you know what I mean?
Like some smells immediately Here's one. Most humans find the
smell of blood repellent in large amounts, the coppery tang
because I don't know. But other species, like predator species,
(21:43):
dig it and tells them where to.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Go, tells them where to go. The shark, for example,
the uh was always looking for that blood smell in
the water. Sharks can smell underwater, right, Yeah, there's the thing.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, they can also sense electromagnetic fluctuations.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
That's rare.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
But here's the here's the interesting thing. Okay, so sharks
can swim faster than us, right, but I think we
could all outrun a shark on land. So when a triathlon,
it really comes down to who is the better bicyclist.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Yeah, sharks. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I stole that meme and I'm gonna keep it.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I I just got a really sweet gravel bike and
I'm gonna I'm gonna do a triathlon before you know it.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
You'll see you'll see mark my words.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
But y'all, sharks can smell blood in concentrations as low
as one part per million. Yep, talk about smelling death
from a mile away.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And Dylan thank you in advance for inserting that on
the shark joke. So there's another thing that smell can
do with functions as a warning system. It lets you
know when something might make you sick. Right, the insane
stench of rotting eggs. I think most humans don't like that.
That's because of hydrogen sulfide. That's least, when the bacteria
(23:01):
in the eggs breaks down, you get too close around it,
you linger too long, you're going to throw up garbage,
rotting flesh. To other examples, And I don't know if
you guys, I think we may have talked about this
on air, But remember all those stories about animals in
nursing homes that were purported to be able to sense death.
(23:21):
I'm thinking specifically of Oscar, the cat, that's probably the
most famous version.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, oh, I think I know about this.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I remember that one Oscar had spend a lot of
time with certain individuals and like almost alert, but as
much as a cat can alert in the same way
you know a cadaver dog can alert. But yeah, I remember,
I remember that distinctly.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
The question with Oscar is could this cat really sense death?
Or are dying people just less likely to move around
which makes them a better stationary sleep spot.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Much?
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yeah, Oscar is a fascinating story. We also hear stories
of human hospice workers, bereaved family members, which everyone is
at some point in their life, and even strangers who
will stop someone on the street and say, pardon me, please.
We don't know each other, but you need to visit
the doctor right now? Can we smell death? Here's where
(24:29):
it gets crazy. Death is like gravity? Does that make sense?
Does that ring true? Like we see its effects, but
we don't fully understand it.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I can get behind that.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
In our previous explorations, we talked about how this concept
of brain death came about and how it was a
need for medical professionals to declare someone dead, right, and like,
what is that actual state of death? And is it
just when your heart stops beating or when your brain
stop sending certain electrical signals anymore, or is it something else?
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, humans don't really know the spiritual, philosophical, or consciousness
based aspects of the dying process, but humans have an
increasingly solid understanding of the physical process, and even without smell, right,
even in this post COVID or long COVID world, humans
(25:27):
can generally tell what another person is dead. I think
that's fair, but there's still mistakes. I think maybe a
better question is can humans smell impending death? Can you
sense medical conditions that could lead to a mortality event?
(25:48):
Have you, guys ever had this experience? Have you ever
caught a whiff of someone's aroma or their secretions to
use the ferromonic term, and then thought, something's wrong with
this person.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
I've heard it described like in fiction and you know
TV and film.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I don't want to say, like in the show.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
Deadwood, like there there's a doc character and he sometimes
refers to like the Reek of Putrification, or I think
there's a because the plot line where the saloon owner
Al Swearingen has really really really really crazy bad kidney
stones and like his urine has a smell of blood
because of you know, what's happening in his body. And
(26:35):
that maybe is a little bit more general than what
you're describing, but it is not something I've ever personally experienced.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I think that counts.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, I've had multiple family members in hospice, and it's
difficult for me to know whether I was smelling something
specific about what they were going through individually, or if
what I smelled was, you know, a part of the
care that they had to go through, you know, where
they're being cleaned and taken to the bathroom and all
(27:05):
that other stuff, and like, is it a combination of
that stuff or is it actually something emanating from a
loved one, you know that smells of them passing soon.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Right, Yeah, And you've hit upon one of the big
questions here, because first, in the hospice situation, as the
four of us all unfortunately know, the hospice situation can
make it difficult to isolate a smell to a specific
person because there are so many people who are going
(27:38):
through some very difficult things, right, and the cleaning regimen
of the hospice is going to make some noise, smell wise,
some olfactory noise, so it can be very difficult to
kind of cut through the noise and figure out this
is what's happening to this person in particular. But we
(27:59):
do know when a person approaches the end of their
life and death is looming on the horizon, the body
starts shutting down slowly. The you know, it doesn't shut
down all at once. Pretty often, unless there's a super traumatic,
sudden injury, your body will start closing down multiple systems
(28:23):
and internal processes or processes if you want to put
a tie on it, and those shutdowns each can produce
distinct smells. You were saying, No, the change in the
smell of urine, right, I actually had. I was that
stranger a couple times, once where I violated the social
(28:44):
compact and asked someone to go to a doctor that
I a person I didn't know from a can of paint.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Because we also know that you have some sensitivities to
certain smells in your general life. So I do wonder
if maybe you might be blessed with the powers of
smell beyond you know, the average the average folks.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Oh, I'll tell you who is. No, uh, this is
a bit of trivia. I think it's okay for us
to disclose on air. But you guys, remember when we
learned that none other than our own Jerry Roland is
what's called a super taster.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Supertaster have to impact smell since they're so linked.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, yeah, So if Jerry's kids ever tried to sneak cigarettes.
She's gonna bust them so quickly.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
No, Mama Jerry will bring down the iron fist of
judgment upon them.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
There are other things that can affect what we will
call the smell of death. Infections from injuries, right, necrosis
of your tissue, changes in bowel and fece smell. That's
when you know your digestive process isn't firing on all cylinders.
And then the build up of waste that a healthy
(30:04):
body would normally take care of, producing ammonia as a
very distinct smell.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, and failing kid in these that's how you get
the urine smell when you're like, WHOA, something is off
there and.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
A darker color I'm not mistake and that can be
a bad sign and often accompanied by a stronger smell.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
And if your bubble this is so specific talking from
experience here, if the bubbles in your urine are not
popping quickly, like if they're not too fizzlicious and they're
taking too long, it may mean that there is possibly
blood in your urine or something worth getting looked at. Again,
(30:43):
we're not doctors.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
Also, y'all, to just to take the opportunity every chance
I get to quote Josh Clark, our buddy from stuff
you should know.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Your poop should resemble a rope y s.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Thanks Josh, just say hey, we're talking about keeping an
eye on your body feet.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
That's one to look out for as well. And happy
belated birthday, Josh. May or poops always be a rope
s indeed from your friends, it's stuff they don't want
you to know. Don't make that face back. We're getting
away with this one.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Shooting ropes into a toilet.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Not ropes. Don't shoot ropes, not how we shoot ropes. Man,
Ropes are different. That's shooting es is something very different.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
What oh wait, oh I just now got it different.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
It's a different fluid entirely.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Nature is beautiful.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Spider Man from your nether regions.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
With apologies to everybody listening with their family. Yes, this
is on top of all these other common odors, you know,
like bad breath or sweat, the stuff that will naturally
accrete if you are not super mobile or you're not
capable of being as hygienic as you usually would be.
Breath is a huge indicator, and just like we talked
(32:02):
about with pheromones, it's really difficult to study breath. I
will also add, since we apply critical thinking to conspiracies,
what do you guys think about the idea that holatosis
was made up to sell mouthwash?
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I mean, it's certainly real.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
If you don't brush your teeth, then you get kind
of this like kind of poop poo smell. Like it's
very much a real thing. I don't know that it's
a condition though, is.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It howlatosis was made up? Right? But the concept of
having a ton seal stone or something like that, I
mean that's.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Real, absolutely, and and it's a kind of companying smell. Yeah,
I guess I didn't realize that the term was more
of a marketing ploy, but it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, I think they needed a name to hang it on.
There's a great article in the Smithsonian from back in
twenty fifteen by Laura Clark how holatosis became a medical
condition with a cure, that breath always existed, it just
wasn't monetized.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah. Well, thank goodness they did monetize it, because I
enjoy everybody going around with minty fresh breath.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, I'm not even the biggest fan of mint it's
just better than the alternative. You know what I mean.
It's it's better than.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Coffee and cigarettes.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Yeah, okay, breakfast and champions.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Also check out a water pick if you're a floss averse,
a water pick is a great alternative and it will
just using it a couple of times, you know, a week,
it will definitely go a long way and you will
smell that smell that we're talking about. If you need
to use a flaw situation and you have not.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
That. Yeah, the smell of someone on the way to
the grave can still exist no matter what kind of
sanitary regimen that individual has, and from what we've seen
in research, generally, the smells of someone who are on
(33:57):
the way from this mortal veil they become more distinct
and noticeable towards the last one to two weeks of life,
and those smells can improve, but they can also worsen
depending on a number of factors. Caretakers who are some
of you know a lot of caretakers are just unsung heroes.
(34:18):
They don't get paid enough. They go above and beyond.
They do their best to mitigate some of these odors.
But as a person reaches the end of their life,
the smells will inevitably worsen. A change in smell is
actually one of the big flags to a lot of caretakers.
(34:39):
You know, you've attuned yourself to a person's body for
months or years and then something changes. That is a
flag for you, and a lot of caretakers take that
very seriously.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, when sepsis sets in, it's not long from them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
And the thing is all of this that we've described,
these are all very real things. They're all case by case.
There's a lot of proven science here. But this is
not necessarily the smell of death itself. It's the spell
of things associated with troubling medical conditions. One question that
(35:22):
we started asking was why do so many people encounter
this intense visceral reaction near the diet, Like you walk
into a hospital. We all know, unfortunately, as Nola is saying,
the smell of hospitals. Uh somewhere after three am.
Speaker 6 (35:39):
Oh my god, Oh my gosh, they got to me,
They got to us all, buddy, oh man.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
But I think you're on the money there, because it
is such a universal experience for people. You can walk
in and you can feel that death is nearby, even
if you don't know the person who is passing or
you can't see them. There's something about being in proximity
to death that puts so many people on edge. Maybe
(36:14):
it's memory. Maybe we just have these unpleasant associations in
the past. But could that account for everything or could
there be a deeper mechanism at play. What do you
say we take a break for a word from our sponsors. Yes,
(36:36):
all right, we've returned. Let's introduce to the stage now.
Something called putra sine.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Mmm, putra sine a four carbon alkaline alpha omega diamine.
Speaker 5 (36:50):
I mean alpha omega alpha omega diamine. It's the beginning
and the end scene also sounds like a Futurama product.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
I don't know what it does.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
I was also thinking of it feels like it would
be a band that has the black metal graphic font
on a T shirt, you know, like possible to read. Yeah,
it would be something's got to metal.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Guy.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Oh, you like Future Scene? Name three of their previous
bass players.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
I couldn't possibly Future Scene have died under mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
I bet you like decarboxylation too, man, right, Oh you
like brittalism?
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Name three concrete examples.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
But oh yeah, what's your favorite carcass song? Is it
manifestation of varicos urethra?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm a fan. We are fun
at parties. It does appear that there is a deeper
mechanism at play. If the smell of death does exist
for humans, it may well be attributed to putre scene.
In twenty fifteen, there was a fascinating study that delved
(38:09):
into this.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
Researchers Arenault Wisman and Elan Schrirah, Wow, okay, that's correct. Shrira,
a psychologist University of Kent and a behavioral scientist at
Arkansas Tech University, respectively, delved into this very mystery. In
their study, The Smell of Death Evidence and puture scene
illicits threat management mechanisms, which in and of itself could
(38:33):
be a death metal song. They found that this excretion,
the substance putre scene, a chemical compound emitted by fatty
acids breaking down when dead tissues decay, is a hardwired,
old factory threat indicator, like what we were talking about earlier,
Certain things that kind of like hip your brain to
an impending negative situation, similar to how some other organisms
(38:56):
secrete alarm pheromones.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Which we talked about our previous episode.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
So in the study, they conducted four separate tests that
exposed people to putre sine. They found time and time
and time again that people encountering this substance were edgy,
were stressed, were under duress. Just sensing it created a
cognitive reaction that related to a fight or flight mechanism.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
This isn't used in smelling salts, is it? Or one
of those things that make you just go, you know,
adrenaline into action. It looks like it's not a common
additive or ingredient in smelling salts that are available, at
least commercially. That would just be alcohol and ammonia, which
(39:42):
many of us lovingly know as cat pep. But you know,
or at least the scent of it, the loft of
the cat pep, it is oppressive.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Yeah, the litterbox napal one percent.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
I do wonder though, if putre scene has any interesting
uses for Maybe some folks from that death metal community
might want to like bottle it up and sell it
as a scent.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yeah, yeah, you know. On that note, there does seem
to be an opportunity in the market for repellent fragrance
alarm warning go away kind of stuff. I'm interested to
see the research DARPA over to you. Okay, guys, so
(40:26):
hop too on that.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Sprinkle it all around the bunker.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Sprinkle it all around. Please. If you are a high
level diplomat and you're going to have a difficult conversation,
just slap some of that on your pits because they'll
say he has to get out of the room. So
in this trial, this is interesting. So they have these
four different tests that we're describing. In one trial, they
(40:52):
have sixty people open a jar. Open the jar and
snarf it, give it a huff. Some of these people
encounter or ammonia smelling salts. It's a gross but not
terrifying odor. Others met the smell of putracine or met
the molecules of puture scene. And afterwards they sit in
(41:14):
front of a screen, these participants and they have to
stare at the screen until a red dot randomly and
unpredictably appears. The folks who huffed putre scene were consistently
quicker to react to clock and identify the dot, and
this indicates to the scientists that something about encountering this
(41:35):
smell makes people more vigilant. It's a weird performance.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Buff That's so strange because the the the ammonia in
spelling salt is meant to do the same thing, right,
that's the theoretical use of those is to take a
huff and then go work out or then go you know,
fighting in the octagon and that kind of thing. Like,
I mean really like that's what they're use because it
gets your drone pumping, and it theoretically makes you ready
(42:03):
for war or ready to take on anything that's coming
at you.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Dude.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
Not to keep harping on the death metal stuff, but
I distinctly remember this this feature in Spin magazine back
in the day when I was like a teenager about
the Norwegian black metal scene, and there was this one
dude who had this like dead crow carcass that he
kept in a bag and he would huff a whiff
of it before every show and he described it as
getting the putrification of death in his nostrils and it
(42:29):
would give him like a pump, a pumped up kind
of vibe to perform, to perform the metals.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Well, thinking about this experiment and then the way they're
testing it with that red dot, you guys, what does
that make you think about just identifying a red dot in.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Darkness, Oh right, like eyes of predators.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, that's what it makes me think about it at least.
So then I imagine, you know this need, this evolutionary
need to be able to look out into you know,
the forest or something and just pick out when set
of eyes is illuminated by the fire or something because.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
You've smelled the carcass, which means a predator may be nearby.
Also shout out to that reference the name of the
musician you're talking about. No, what like the stage name
was actually dead that's from the band Mam, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
That's right from Ayem. Yeah, I remember Spooky Dude, I
remember too.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Like, it makes it makes sense that future scene would
elicit this instinctual, unconscious reaction. And you know, we have
to wonder how much more testing can be done here.
There is another weird test they did, by the way,
and I think you're on the money, Matt, with the
concept of predator identification. So we said they have four studies.
(43:47):
In two more of these experiments on a university campus,
they randomly stopped something like one hundred ish people. So
a guy walks up to you and they say, do
you have time to help us out. We'll do it.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I really got to get a class.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
But yeah, okay, okay, yeah, it's just real quick. Okay,
so will you uh, will you start? Will you lean
into this jar and just huff it real quick? It's
it's fine, we work for the college.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Can you only live once?
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Dom?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I gotta go?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Could you describe always walking away?
Speaker 4 (44:26):
I was running.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
He's right, okay, get the next one, Get the next one,
ted ted, get the next one. That's literally what happened.
They went up to people with these jars, uh, and
some of these jars had puture scene, and they asked
random folks to huff from the jar, and just like
you so beautifully depicted Matt, after snarfing the future scene,
(44:49):
people walked away faster than the folks who had smelled ammonia.
And still the folks who smelled ammonia were properly thinking,
you guys are what I have to go to poly
side in four minutes.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
This is not cool. This is not cool.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
It's also a moment to ask, I mean, you're a
college student, and portrayed that so well, Matt, what would
you what would we do if a random person came
up to you and asked you to huff from an
unidentified jar.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
You just I think you walk away before you hear
the whole thing out.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
I don't think. I don't think I give him time
to give me the full spiel.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, there's an episode of Radio Rental that just came
out recently where there's a story about jars filled with
the stuff in them. It was like a true story.
This reminder to go listen to Radio Rental you a chance,
because you'll hear real stories like about this. But guys,
(45:55):
I didn't know that future scene is, at least from
what I'm reading, a solid which is cross to think
about first of all, But then even worse is thinking
about cadaverine, which is it's a it's very similar. They
call it a homologue of future scene, but it is
like the go.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, it's the gag, it's the gunk. Yeah, the uh,
it's the gushy stuff.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Oh that is absolutely to be fair.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
But they're talking about different gushy stuff to be to
be fair as well. Yeah, cadavering, get it, like a
cadaver da da da da. Puture scene and cadavering are responsible,
we believe for the odor of putrefying flesh across multiple organisms.
These were first described by Ludwig Braeger back in eighteen
(46:55):
eighty five, but science didn't really understand how these molecules
affected healthy human beings until much much later. So that
proves to us, yes, death has a smell. In some cases,
impending death has a smell that other people can clock
(47:16):
before the dying person can, because it can be very
difficult to smell yourself, which is just another you know,
stuff they don't want you to know. Hygiene tip. We're
not we're not busting anybody's bones here. We're not being judgmental.
But if you spell yourself, your breath, your body scent,
(47:36):
and you think it's unpleasant, get these to a washroom.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Everyone else certainly can't. Yeah, yeah, no question, guys.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Before we move on to the next stuff, can we
talk about cadaver dogs really fast?
Speaker 4 (47:53):
Always a fascinating subject.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
We brought them up many times, and as we talked
about on the top of the show, dogs came just
have this incredible sense of smell and they can pick
stuff out and they could be trained pretty easily. It's
not easy to train a dog to hunt for anything, right.
A drug sniffing dog cadaverdog anything or you know some
(48:15):
a dog that hunts for missing persons or things like that.
But it is easier than training any other animal, and
you can't train a human to do it because we
don't have the hardware. So it is kind of cool
just how it can be done. And just talking there
about what was that year eighteen eighty five, eighteen eighty five,
so like eighty years almost before that, the first theoretical
(48:41):
cadaver dog was born and didn't know it was going
into action, but it did when it sniffed around an
old shed and found that a police at the time
found two dead bodies buried beneath that shed, and it
was because the dog could just smell something was going
on in that shed top. Yeah, well after death. So
(49:02):
this is like smelling future scene and you know, all
the all the other stuff, all the hits, but again
but deep underground.
Speaker 5 (49:11):
They don't even have to be fresh though, isn't the
thing that's There's a plot point in a Curb episode
where they're opening a restaurant where construction gets delayed because
of a corpse sniffing dog finds a body buried underneath
the foundation of the restaurant.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
And they have to dig it up and then do
you know an investigation.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Oh, when Larry's coming back?
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Just yeah, he's working with Obama. Obama.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
Well, I think he's doing another season and Curbed too.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
Well, I think it's called curb though there's something else.
It's a sketch thing. Yeah, like producer. That's what he
that's what he does.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Amazing. Well, but guys, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to go
back here, but just that led down a little rabbit
hole of the number of human beings that get buried
underneath a concrete slab or get incorporated into do the structures,
the concrete structures of buildings. Yes, there's way too much
(50:07):
stuff out there, way too many stories to even mention
right now. But this cadaver dogs specifically are the thing
you can use to find that kind of stuff because
the depth that a human body can be in a
state of decomposition is astounding. And then a dog can
still smell it.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yes, absolutely, because they have such phenomenal sensory ability. And
you know, it brings us back to another point we
often discover in the widest of conversations. As human technology improves, right,
and as humans make breakthroughs on technological fronts, civilization just
(50:52):
gets closer and closer to existing organic mechanisms. Right, You
can't really like the reason people use cadaver dogs and
rescue dogs or land mind sensing rats, for example. And
I'm a huge proponent of that, as you guys know,
is because these creatures already do things better than the
(51:17):
mechanisms that people can build. That's a little bit of
a word salad, but it's an important point, you know.
We know it gets even weirder, right if we just
take it back to humans. A lot of these reactions
that you're going to have to the smell of a
medical condition or death, they're often going to be sub
(51:38):
or unconscious. Every time you smell another person, you are
running a low key medical diagnostic on them. You are
making a diagnosis of their what's the fancy word, their
odor print, you know, like how people have fingerprints, everybody
has an odor print as well. That was so weird
(51:58):
to me. I guess it felt more powerful because there
was a specific word associated.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
It's a cool word. It's not just like a little
catchy buzzphrase, right.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
No, yeah, it is a It is an actual technical term.
It's a phrase encapsulating the sum of all the aromas
and individual emits, your breath, your blood, urine A. It's
a gestaltic snapshot of your age, your sex, your diet,
your metabolism, and of course your health. And multiple, multiple,
(52:30):
multiple studies show that people tend to smell more quote
unquote aversive when they're under the weather, not even when
you're dying. But sickness can have a smell. Different medical
conditions can have a smell that repels other people, even
if they are not aware of it consciously. A few examples.
(52:53):
Someone with yellow fever can smell like a butcher's shop,
like meat being chopped. Someone with typhoid can smell like
baked bread. Folks battling diabetes and we can confirm this
one firsthand, can smell faintly of rotting apples, and we
know why. It's because of the acetode released on the breath.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
WHOA.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
So, even if you're not a super smeller Jerry style,
you will likely be able to clock these sense and
everything instinctively inside you, even if you're not aware of it,
Everything instinctly inside you will be telling you to go away.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah, you've probably experienced something like this when you've had
somebody you probably in your family, or a child or
a parent or something that just has a weird smell
about them all of a sudden and you notice that, oh,
they're starting to sneeze a lot, and then they get sick,
or you encounter someone who has a specific smell and
it's hard to even place, but it's to me, it's
(53:57):
the same kind of thing where you're smelling sickness, right,
You're attuned to sickness, not a specific virus or specific
infection or something. It's just your body. Your body knows
and senses, Oh this, I need to stay away from
this person where they're not going to sneeze on me.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (54:16):
Exactly. Yes, you can not only smell death, you can
smell sickness if all your mechanisms are functioning properly. And
there is a positive note that may surprise several of
us here in the audience today, when healthy people encounter
these sick smell signals, which are just kind of the
part and parcel of the six signals, right, the red eyes,
(54:41):
staggered movement, sweat and flim that kind of stuff. When
you encounter those six smell signals, your own body can
kick into gear and slightly but measurably increase your own
immune activity. So even if you can't explain it to yourself,
your body is taking action to protect you. That's person
(55:03):
smells sick, says your body to itself, but not to
you consciously. We got to get out of here. Also,
let's shift up the second gear real quick.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Yep, to rush away from these guys in their jars.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
These tries. Why oh why did I smell that random jar?
I've got to stop listening to people just because they're
wearied lab coats.
Speaker 4 (55:27):
Damn it.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
So there we go. I mean, this is, I guess
less a case of stuff they don't want you to know,
a more case of stuff your body knows and doesn't
bother consciously telling you we owe a lot to Dogs
are residents, super smellers. They're going to play a big
role in early detection of medical conditions in the years
(55:48):
to come. There was actually research on creating an artificial
dog nose, and it's worthwhile research, but it solves a
problem humanity doesn't have because we already have dogs. Shout
out Apollo, who's being so good as we record.
Speaker 4 (56:05):
Very kind of shocking right Oky forgetting he's there.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
So we also have it mentioned false positives. So there
are times you can smell bad due to something positive,
like entering ketosis. If you're working out, you're on a
keto diet, or having a strenuous exercise or sex session,
you know you're gonna end up with a smell. But
death and sickness do have a smell. It's an invisible,
(56:31):
often unconscious, highly sophisticated warning system meant to safeguard the species.
And as we mentioned, you know a lot of us, unfortunately,
have firsthand experience with this. If you're comfortable sharing your
own stories times you have smelled mortality, we'd love to
hear them. You can send us an email, you can
give us a call. You can find us on the
(56:52):
lines that's right.
Speaker 5 (56:53):
You can sniff us out at the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on x FKA, Twitter, on YouTube with
video content.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
Galore for your enjoyment, and.
Speaker 5 (57:04):
Also on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it
gets crazy. On Instagram and TikTok. However, you'll have to
smell us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
If you'd like to call us and use your mouth
to say words into a telephonic device, why not call
one eight three three STDWYTK. When you call in, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know within the
message if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you've got something else to say, maybe
in word form, why not instead send us an email.
Speaker 3 (57:35):
We are the entities to read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet out of freid. Sometimes
the void writes back, please, please, please, folks help us out.
What on God's green earth is that fake limon chemical?
I can't get it out of the back of my
mouth right now.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
It smells like cleaner, floor cleaner.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
But why is it in food? What if you re
see at iHeartRadio dot.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Com, stuff they don't want you to know. Is a
(58:23):
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dyland, the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
argue you are here and that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Let's all pause for
a moment and give ourselves a sniff, a sniff test.
How are we smelling? Guys? How we smell.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Fresh out of the shower? Baby? Say the little perfumeish
going on?
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Did you put some of those pheromones on? I did
some of the musk. Since then you have described.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Directly into my pits otherwise.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
From your crevassist the Australia, make sure it happens. Yeah,
and I still smell like an airplane. Do with that
what you will, folks, Uh jet fuel? No, the inside
of an airport?
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Okay? Cool?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
The passenger part. We've all encountered someone who, for one
reason or another, doesn't smell amazing and we're not. Look,
we're not better than anybody else. We're not immune to this.
Either after a workout or enough time without a shower
or toothbrush encounter. Pretty much everybody acquires some kind of
(01:41):
not entirely pleasant odor. I got to ask is, without
pulling out specifics, what's the weirdest smell you've ever encountered
from a person, a stranger, or a loved one, Like
the weirdest not pleasant smell.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
That's a very personal question.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Then it's weird once you've had kids, because you know,
the kids make all the stuff that has the smells
when they're little, tiny babies, and you just kind of
you either get used to it or you know you're
gonna be vomiting in your mouth a little bit every while.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Yeah, a combination of the two. You know, they're not
mutually exclusive. We're not very pervious.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I don't know. Children smells are a thing.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I'm currently slung up with a little tiny puppy named Apollo,
and he was described to me as smelling like cotton candy.
I don't think I smell that, but who am I
to judge?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Maybe you guys have different brands of cotton candy, you know,
what I mean. I wonder if there's barbecue cotton candy.
I wonder if there's flavored cotton candy. An idea would
be good.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Tejine, cotton candy.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Ben, what is the strangest smell you've ever smelled on somebody?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
A sickly sweet medicinal aroma in a not quite cotton candy,
but cloying would say, and very strong. This wasn't in
this country, but it did fill up the bus we
were traveling on to the point where other people on
(03:10):
the bus were talking about it and eventually determined it
was this one elderly gentleman in the back and had
a conversation with him. Don't know what happened to him,
but we had to have that conversation outside because this aura,
his old factory aura, was so pervasive that it filled
(03:34):
up the bus. So it had really have medical condition, That's.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
What I was gonna say, Man, I have I can't.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
I'm spacing on the name, and they're probably multiple, but
I have heard of certain medical conditions causing someone to
have kind of a perma smell.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
And I'm trying to think. I think it was like
a plot point. I know what it was. It was
in that.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Paul Giamatti Christmas movie that I'm forgetting the name of,
where he's like a kind of a curmudgeonly professor, came
out a couple years ago. It's like very hal Ashby,
kind of seventies, very good, and his character has this
condition where he's constantly smelly, and it comes up a
lot in terms of how it affects his social life.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, that's rough. Actually, we have an update from Dylan
on this. That film is The Leftovers, Thank you, Tennessee.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Very good.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
If you're into seventies movies like Harold and Maude, I
highly recommend that.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And this is a weird conversation. Always we are not doctors,
but I think we can all agree that what constitutes
a bad smell can be culturally dependent and in most cases,
thankfully unpleasant aromas can be easily addressed. But how far
do these bad smells go? What messages do they carry?
(04:46):
While we were creating our earlier episode on human pheromones,
we ran into an incredibly strange question, which is this,
can you smell death?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
I mean, people always talk about the smell of death,
and we can certainly smell dead things.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Right, but is this a step further than that, I
think it might be.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Here are the facts smell, the good, the bad, the ugly.
First things first, let's get it out there. Let's just
all be honest with each other together in this digital
room tonight. Earth kind of stinks, you, guys. Not always
in a bad way. It's just there's a lot of
(05:33):
smelly stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
There's a lot of stuff going on, guys. Look at
all the plant life around you, especially here in the
great Metropolis of Atlanta, in the greater area, there's so
many trees and different kinds of trees and plants that
the smells of nature are generally considered pleasing. But I
always think about that one special tree if you head
(05:57):
on down towards Georgia Tech and it just gives off
this smell that your body knows like something's weird with
that one.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, as Georgia Sagalum. I'm familiar with that. Matt.
Did you ever see the Mitchell and web sketch about
Queen Victoria? Yeah, yes, Okay, we're audios, So Matt's given
the best thought here, Nola. Are you familiar with that one?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, for sure, Big Mitchell and Webman.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Everything go out and watch that one if you haven't
seen it yet.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yes, yeah, yeah, well actually we'll probably each independently rewatch
it after this. What a banger. Yeah, The earth is filled.
Wherever you go in the natural environment, the earth is
filled with countless small molecules of odor that are responsible
for all sorts of good and bad smelling things. And
(06:47):
if you are human, your nose has a superpower just
for these molecules. Sucks air into your nostrils over these
bony ridges called turbinates, and then the air travels over
millions and millions of receptor neurons that sit on a
thing called the old factory epithelium. It's about the size
(07:08):
of a stamp. I'm touching the part of my nose
where I think this is. It's on the roof of
your nasal cavity. So when you when you snarf up
and huff the air, these cells perk up when those
molecules hit them, which means that technically, yes, whenever you
smell something, you're also kind of tasting it. So please
(07:29):
think about that the next time someone farts in a
crowded elevator.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
And also think about that doggo that's currently sitting on
your lap knol.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Hasn't happened yet, I haven't caught away. Well, yeah, I've
been told by others.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, what I mean is your dog is catching a
whiff of whatever is going on around you. Because we've
got true, we've got about six million of those receptors
Ben's talking about. Doggos have like two hundred three hundred
million of those same receptors, so that it.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Does blow my mind sometimes how they're not just constantly overwhelmed,
and some of them are. And this little fella so
far can be he's got a little bit of a
nervous twitch when there's too much stuff going on.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So smell.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Everything's got the new car smell.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
It's true, it's true.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
He does do this funny thing though, where he'll like
really warm up to you, and then you'll leave the
room and you'll come back and he'll have immediately forgotten you,
and it's like re scared of you, which is cute
but also a little frustrated.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
There's a lot of stuff going on, you know, and
dogs treat smell the way that humans treat site. It
is their primary way of experiencing the world, which makes
them interesting for a conversation later this evening anyway, Long
story short, These receptor cells catch wind of these molecules
(08:45):
and send signals to your brain. Your brain is fantastic
at parsing this info. A great analogy for this is
like a guy who's worked at a record shop forever
and customers come in and a just a snatch of
a song, and immediately the record store guy is like, oh, yeah,
(09:06):
Leonard skinnered that smell. And this is how your brain works.
Your brain is an amazing library. Essentially, it takes information
from these olfactory receptors. It references everything it's encountered before.
One of the most common examples you'll hear about when
we talk about smell is going to be the scent
(09:29):
of something like fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Okay, we
all know what that smell is like, or hopefully most
of us know what that smell is like. But that
smell is a combination of a bunch of other chemicals
and molecules and distinct smells working together. Your brain doesn't
go oh, these are seventy plus smells. You don't consciously
(09:52):
think that your brain does all the work for you
and then boom. Instead of knowing specific chemical reactions, you
just realize someone nearby is baking, or you're in a
grocery store where they've piped in that fake scent.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Yeah, or even like you know, to the previous episode
we did on pheromones and such, you sort of get
this general sense of what a combination of smells represents,
even beyond like a tangible thing like that. The thing
that gets conjured could be a memory or like a
time in your life or something, rather than specifically referring
to what the various components that make up the smell
(10:29):
might be.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, this is one of the reasons a lot of
people have an aversion to what's described as the smell
of a hospital. Yeah, even though a hospital doesn't not
one single hospital smells exactly like another hospital, but there.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Is a vibe.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
There's a combination of a lot of these different molecules, right,
that float around and then they get associated, as we're
talking about here, with a memory of a specific time
you're in one, which is probably not for a good thing.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
A big part of this is memory. As we mentioned
in our pheromones episode, smell is the primary encoder of
long term memory for humans, or it's one of the
big players, not for nothing to prove base an entire
novel on this remembrance of things past. Your brain is
so big on memorizing good and bad experiences, and it
(11:23):
associates those experiences with smell, So smell becomes kind of
like your search engine for your library of moments past,
and scientists call this olfaction associated memory. Cubans right now
can recognize about ten thousand different odors, which sounds like
(11:44):
a lot until we think about how many other smells
are out there. And to Matt's point, no two people
smell anything exactly the same. Since different folks have unique experiences,
they can also have different responses to smell. If you
grew up on a horse farm, right, other people may
say horsepoop stinks, but when you smell horse manure, you
(12:08):
might think of warm, pleasant spring afternoons, you know, feeding
apples to old man Jehosah fat, which is a horse
I made up.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Oh yeah, good old fella, you know it.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
My mom often described things as tasting the way things smell,
which is.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
You can kind of wrap your head around it.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
It doesn't quite it's counterintuitive, you know, on paper, but
I think we can all kind of get what that means, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
The seventy percent of taste is smell essentially. With that,
do you guys have examples of smells that other people
might not consider great that have good memories for you.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
I can think of an example of a smell that
basically kind of reminded by what you said at the
top of the show, smelling like an airplane. The smell
of jet fuel makes me feel like traveling. It reminds
me of trips of the past. It reminds me of
being a kid and being on flights and going to
see my mom. And that smell that you that many
(13:05):
people could find you know at it are unpleasant.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I always associate with positive memories too.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I experienced this the other day, went out to a
restaurant and after parking and getting out of the vehicle,
there's this really strong smell that myself and the people
with couldn't quite place, and then we realized, oh, it's
like super fresh petroleum based paint. And it reminded me
of a two stroke engine or one of these smaller
(13:33):
engines on like an ATV, which then and it gave
me I was I was. We were all remarking how
strong and kind of gross it was, but at the
same time it was bringing all of these thoughts of
me getting on my friends, you know, atv in the
backyard and driving around like we're crazy kids.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
But it reminds me of the term sickly sweet people
use sometimes, you know, to describe kind of like a
negative smell that also is kind of positive.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, cloying perhaps. And I'm right there with you, bet
and with you Nol, because I have a personal example,
without getting into too many specifics, that I think speaks
to both of these stories. I will always be transported
by the smell of exhaust, especially exhaust from a vehicle
(14:24):
without a catalytic converter, because it reminds me of times
when I was having adventures, and to be fair, misadventures
in countries where catalytic converters are not a thing. So
when I smell that, instantly, I'm back there, just for
a second, I'm transported. I'm transformed. And this happens to
all of us because the memory a scent resurrects has
(14:49):
a neurochemical effect on you. It triggers feel good chemicals
in your brain. Null I'm smelling a jet fuel, or
I'm smelling fuel from aviation, and immediately Now, I'm not
all the way in the present. Part of me is
in the past, on exciting journeys and adventures. I'm Matt.
(15:11):
I'm smelling this thing that logically to me in the
present day may not be the most amazing smell, but
the me of the past, that past, that past is
on an ATV having adventures. This is so cool. It
also reminds me of our conversation previously, which explains just this.
(15:34):
The old factory associated memories are the reason that long
term partners tend to dig each other's stank, even when
the rest of the world is like, oh my god,
what is this guy? Human? Jym sock.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:49):
Another one that comes to mind is like the smell
of the kind of the rotten smell of the ocean
on the West coast, Like it's almost like a oceany
low tide sewer smell. And I've always associated that with
travels to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I go throughout
my life and that smell whenever it comes back, it
sort of mixes with the salts and a little bit
(16:09):
of that kind of funky, you know, sewer ocean smell,
like rotting fish or something. That I it brings back
positive memory, So it's an interesting thought experiment.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Kind of like New York described in spells. We'd love
to hear you describe your city in a smell, by
the way, conspiracy realist conspiracy Didiheartradio dot Com, New York,
I would say, fresh bait bagels, some fry meat, some urine,
and some cannabis New York.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, man, maybe a little horse manure if you're near
the park.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
There we go. There's an interesting thing we should mention.
By the way, the opposite can be true here as well.
And let's see if any of us have a specific
example of this. Most people enjoy the smell of certain
flowers or plant life other than linden trees, although Matt,
I imagine there are some people who toy the smell
(17:05):
of linden trees. You might like citrus fruits as well,
or you at least find these smells in offence tolerable. However,
your memory and the way it links the smell is
so powerful that if you associate a good smell with
a certain traumatic event, you will react adversely to it,
(17:25):
you know, like something bad happened to you. As a
child that you associate with the smell of lemon cream
cheese bars, and everybody else finds them an inoffensive I'll
say it sea tier level dessert. But you go to
a place one of.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
My favorites.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Seer wow.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
S tier here.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Alright, Well, more lemon bars for you guys.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I have a specific memory event well we'll get into it,
but yeah, very positive memory of those think.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But that's the thing. It's it's somewhat arbitrary. It's case
by case. Everybody's unique.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Here.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
If someone was around a lemon bar when something terrible
happened to them, like they got news of a loved
when passing, or they stepped on a landmine. I don't
know what kind of situation this is, but they like,
you know, every time they smell a lemon bar, They're like,
where's my left foot? I forgot about that.
Speaker 5 (18:29):
This party sucks, Ben, I have a feeling right again
in to some of this, but I'll just kind of
prime the pump here. When I think of the idea
of smelling death too, I often think of the reports
of people experiencing strokes or certain brains elms as smelling
almonds or smelling burning hair or things like that.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
That's always blown my mind.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
And every time I get a whiff of a little
burning something, I'm always like, oh, no, is a meaning the.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Time just to say, on lemons for a second, I
have a specific thing that I think you guys might
feel to say, way about lemon bars, but lemon pepper wings.
I can't stand the smell of it.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Oh it's a very oppressive smell.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
A delicious taste, not a good chemically stings the nostrils, yes,
very much.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But oh I have specific memories of discarded lemon pepper,
like clearly lemon pepper wings, just the bones and stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But you can still strewn around Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Are you traveling back there now?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I think it might be a
lemon extract of some sort in that case too, because.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
I almost don't think a lemon is involved now that
I'm thinking about it, and a lemon pepper, because there's
no lemon to it, to be honest. It's something that's
I like it as a taste, it's got some zing,
but it's a chemically I.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Can feel it in the back of my back, top
of my mouth right now. You know this is also folks,
when you come to Atlanta. Yes, the stereotypes are true.
Lemon pepper wet rules the day. It does taste better
than it smells, and as they'll pointed out, it is
a city riddled with chicken wing bones.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Yes, it is apparently at its best made with dried
lemon zest, black pepper and salt. So there you go,
shout out to the local the locals got the best
lemon pepper wet and look it up literally, you type
that in it is. It is Atlanti centric and it's
very good, but maybe not for everybody. Apparently the best
wings in town I've yet to try come from a
famous gentlemen's club.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Oh yeah, the Cheetah Right Olivia, I think it's magic
city has the best wings time for some research boys.
So this also shows us that old factory associated memory
can be a matter of individual perception. But this is
the important part for our conversation tonight. Despite that individuation,
(20:55):
there are certain sense that humans overwhelmingly agree are good
or bad. Some of these smells are noted as really
good or really bad even when a human experiences them
for the first time, which means that certain affinity four
or avoidance of different smells is hardwired into you. It
(21:19):
is instinctual. You are not that far removed from the
ancestral days of primates of old, you know what I mean?
Like some smells immediately Here's one. Most humans find the
smell of blood repellent in large amounts, the coppery tang
because I don't know. But other species, like predator species,
(21:43):
dig it and tells them where to.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Go, tells them where to go. The shark, for example,
the uh was always looking for that blood smell in
the water. Sharks can smell underwater, right, Yeah, there's the thing.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, they can also sense electromagnetic fluctuations.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
That's rare.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
But here's the here's the interesting thing. Okay, so sharks
can swim faster than us, right, but I think we
could all outrun a shark on land. So when a triathlon,
it really comes down to who is the better bicyclist.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Yeah, sharks. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I stole that meme and I'm gonna keep it.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I I just got a really sweet gravel bike and
I'm gonna I'm gonna do a triathlon before you know it.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
You'll see you'll see mark my words.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
But y'all, sharks can smell blood in concentrations as low
as one part per million. Yep, talk about smelling death
from a mile away.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And Dylan thank you in advance for inserting that on
the shark joke. So there's another thing that smell can
do with functions as a warning system. It lets you
know when something might make you sick. Right, the insane
stench of rotting eggs. I think most humans don't like that.
That's because of hydrogen sulfide. That's least, when the bacteria
(23:01):
in the eggs breaks down, you get too close around it,
you linger too long, you're going to throw up garbage,
rotting flesh. To other examples, And I don't know if
you guys, I think we may have talked about this
on air, But remember all those stories about animals in
nursing homes that were purported to be able to sense death.
(23:21):
I'm thinking specifically of Oscar, the cat, that's probably the
most famous version.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yeah, oh, I think I know about this.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I remember that one Oscar had spend a lot of
time with certain individuals and like almost alert, but as
much as a cat can alert in the same way
you know a cadaver dog can alert. But yeah, I remember,
I remember that distinctly.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
The question with Oscar is could this cat really sense death?
Or are dying people just less likely to move around
which makes them a better stationary sleep spot.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Much?
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Yeah, Oscar is a fascinating story. We also hear stories
of human hospice workers, bereaved family members, which everyone is
at some point in their life, and even strangers who
will stop someone on the street and say, pardon me, please.
We don't know each other, but you need to visit
the doctor right now? Can we smell death? Here's where
(24:29):
it gets crazy. Death is like gravity? Does that make sense?
Does that ring true? Like we see its effects, but
we don't fully understand it.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I can get behind that.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
In our previous explorations, we talked about how this concept
of brain death came about and how it was a
need for medical professionals to declare someone dead, right, and like,
what is that actual state of death? And is it
just when your heart stops beating or when your brain
stop sending certain electrical signals anymore, or is it something else?
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, humans don't really know the spiritual, philosophical, or consciousness
based aspects of the dying process, but humans have an
increasingly solid understanding of the physical process, and even without smell, right,
even in this post COVID or long COVID world, humans
(25:27):
can generally tell what another person is dead. I think
that's fair, but there's still mistakes. I think maybe a
better question is can humans smell impending death? Can you
sense medical conditions that could lead to a mortality event?
(25:48):
Have you, guys ever had this experience? Have you ever
caught a whiff of someone's aroma or their secretions to
use the ferromonic term, and then thought, something's wrong with
this person.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
I've heard it described like in fiction and you know
TV and film.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I don't want to say, like in the show.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
Deadwood, like there there's a doc character and he sometimes
refers to like the Reek of Putrification, or I think
there's a because the plot line where the saloon owner
Al Swearingen has really really really really crazy bad kidney
stones and like his urine has a smell of blood
because of you know, what's happening in his body. And
(26:35):
that maybe is a little bit more general than what
you're describing, but it is not something I've ever personally experienced.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I think that counts.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, I've had multiple family members in hospice, and it's
difficult for me to know whether I was smelling something
specific about what they were going through individually, or if
what I smelled was, you know, a part of the
care that they had to go through, you know, where
they're being cleaned and taken to the bathroom and all
(27:05):
that other stuff, and like, is it a combination of
that stuff or is it actually something emanating from a
loved one, you know that smells of them passing soon.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Right, Yeah, And you've hit upon one of the big
questions here, because first, in the hospice situation, as the
four of us all unfortunately know, the hospice situation can
make it difficult to isolate a smell to a specific
person because there are so many people who are going
(27:38):
through some very difficult things, right, and the cleaning regimen
of the hospice is going to make some noise, smell wise,
some olfactory noise, so it can be very difficult to
kind of cut through the noise and figure out this
is what's happening to this person in particular. But we
(27:59):
do know when a person approaches the end of their
life and death is looming on the horizon, the body
starts shutting down slowly. The you know, it doesn't shut
down all at once. Pretty often, unless there's a super traumatic,
sudden injury, your body will start closing down multiple systems
(28:23):
and internal processes or processes if you want to put
a tie on it, and those shutdowns each can produce
distinct smells. You were saying, No, the change in the
smell of urine, right, I actually had. I was that
stranger a couple times, once where I violated the social
(28:44):
compact and asked someone to go to a doctor that
I a person I didn't know from a can of paint.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Because we also know that you have some sensitivities to
certain smells in your general life. So I do wonder
if maybe you might be blessed with the powers of
smell beyond you know, the average the average folks.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Oh, I'll tell you who is. No, uh, this is
a bit of trivia. I think it's okay for us
to disclose on air. But you guys, remember when we
learned that none other than our own Jerry Roland is
what's called a super taster.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Supertaster have to impact smell since they're so linked.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, yeah, So if Jerry's kids ever tried to sneak cigarettes.
She's gonna bust them so quickly.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
No, Mama Jerry will bring down the iron fist of
judgment upon them.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
There are other things that can affect what we will
call the smell of death. Infections from injuries, right, necrosis
of your tissue, changes in bowel and fece smell. That's
when you know your digestive process isn't firing on all cylinders.
And then the build up of waste that a healthy
(30:04):
body would normally take care of, producing ammonia as a
very distinct smell.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, and failing kid in these that's how you get
the urine smell when you're like, WHOA, something is off
there and.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
A darker color I'm not mistake and that can be
a bad sign and often accompanied by a stronger smell.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
And if your bubble this is so specific talking from
experience here, if the bubbles in your urine are not
popping quickly, like if they're not too fizzlicious and they're
taking too long, it may mean that there is possibly
blood in your urine or something worth getting looked at. Again,
(30:43):
we're not doctors.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
Also, y'all, to just to take the opportunity every chance
I get to quote Josh Clark, our buddy from stuff
you should know.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Your poop should resemble a rope y s.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Thanks Josh, just say hey, we're talking about keeping an
eye on your body feet.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
That's one to look out for as well. And happy
belated birthday, Josh. May or poops always be a rope
s indeed from your friends, it's stuff they don't want
you to know. Don't make that face back. We're getting
away with this one.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Shooting ropes into a toilet.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Not ropes. Don't shoot ropes, not how we shoot ropes. Man,
Ropes are different. That's shooting es is something very different.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
What oh wait, oh I just now got it different.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
It's a different fluid entirely.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Nature is beautiful.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Spider Man from your nether regions.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
With apologies to everybody listening with their family. Yes, this
is on top of all these other common odors, you know,
like bad breath or sweat, the stuff that will naturally
accrete if you are not super mobile or you're not
capable of being as hygienic as you usually would be.
Breath is a huge indicator, and just like we talked
(32:02):
about with pheromones, it's really difficult to study breath. I
will also add, since we apply critical thinking to conspiracies,
what do you guys think about the idea that holatosis
was made up to sell mouthwash?
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I mean, it's certainly real.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
If you don't brush your teeth, then you get kind
of this like kind of poop poo smell. Like it's
very much a real thing. I don't know that it's
a condition though, is.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It howlatosis was made up? Right? But the concept of
having a ton seal stone or something like that, I
mean that's.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
Real, absolutely, and and it's a kind of companying smell. Yeah,
I guess I didn't realize that the term was more
of a marketing ploy, but it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, I think they needed a name to hang it on.
There's a great article in the Smithsonian from back in
twenty fifteen by Laura Clark how holatosis became a medical
condition with a cure, that breath always existed, it just
wasn't monetized.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah. Well, thank goodness they did monetize it, because I
enjoy everybody going around with minty fresh breath.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, I'm not even the biggest fan of mint it's
just better than the alternative. You know what I mean.
It's it's better than.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Coffee and cigarettes.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Yeah, okay, breakfast and champions.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Also check out a water pick if you're a floss averse,
a water pick is a great alternative and it will
just using it a couple of times, you know, a week,
it will definitely go a long way and you will
smell that smell that we're talking about. If you need
to use a flaw situation and you have not.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
That. Yeah, the smell of someone on the way to
the grave can still exist no matter what kind of
sanitary regimen that individual has, and from what we've seen
in research, generally, the smells of someone who are on
(33:57):
the way from this mortal veil they become more distinct
and noticeable towards the last one to two weeks of life,
and those smells can improve, but they can also worsen
depending on a number of factors. Caretakers who are some
of you know a lot of caretakers are just unsung heroes.
(34:18):
They don't get paid enough. They go above and beyond.
They do their best to mitigate some of these odors.
But as a person reaches the end of their life,
the smells will inevitably worsen. A change in smell is
actually one of the big flags to a lot of caretakers.
(34:39):
You know, you've attuned yourself to a person's body for
months or years and then something changes. That is a
flag for you, and a lot of caretakers take that
very seriously.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, when sepsis sets in, it's not long from them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
And the thing is all of this that we've described,
these are all very real things. They're all case by case.
There's a lot of proven science here. But this is
not necessarily the smell of death itself. It's the spell
of things associated with troubling medical conditions. One question that
(35:22):
we started asking was why do so many people encounter
this intense visceral reaction near the diet, Like you walk
into a hospital. We all know, unfortunately, as Nola is saying,
the smell of hospitals. Uh somewhere after three am.
Speaker 6 (35:39):
Oh my god, Oh my gosh, they got to me,
They got to us all, buddy, oh man.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
But I think you're on the money there, because it
is such a universal experience for people. You can walk
in and you can feel that death is nearby, even
if you don't know the person who is passing or
you can't see them. There's something about being in proximity
to death that puts so many people on edge. Maybe
(36:14):
it's memory. Maybe we just have these unpleasant associations in
the past. But could that account for everything or could
there be a deeper mechanism at play. What do you
say we take a break for a word from our sponsors. Yes,
(36:36):
all right, we've returned. Let's introduce to the stage now.
Something called putra sine.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Mmm, putra sine a four carbon alkaline alpha omega diamine.
Speaker 5 (36:50):
I mean alpha omega alpha omega diamine. It's the beginning
and the end scene also sounds like a Futurama product.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
I don't know what it does.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
I was also thinking of it feels like it would
be a band that has the black metal graphic font
on a T shirt, you know, like possible to read. Yeah,
it would be something's got to metal.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Guy.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Oh, you like Future Scene? Name three of their previous
bass players.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
I couldn't possibly Future Scene have died under mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
I bet you like decarboxylation too, man, right, Oh you
like brittalism?
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Name three concrete examples.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
But oh yeah, what's your favorite carcass song? Is it
manifestation of varicos urethra?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm a fan. We are fun
at parties. It does appear that there is a deeper
mechanism at play. If the smell of death does exist
for humans, it may well be attributed to putre scene.
In twenty fifteen, there was a fascinating study that delved
(38:09):
into this.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
Researchers Arenault Wisman and Elan Schrirah, Wow, okay, that's correct. Shrira,
a psychologist University of Kent and a behavioral scientist at
Arkansas Tech University, respectively, delved into this very mystery. In
their study, The Smell of Death Evidence and puture scene
illicits threat management mechanisms, which in and of itself could
(38:33):
be a death metal song. They found that this excretion,
the substance putre scene, a chemical compound emitted by fatty
acids breaking down when dead tissues decay, is a hardwired,
old factory threat indicator, like what we were talking about earlier,
Certain things that kind of like hip your brain to
an impending negative situation, similar to how some other organisms
(38:56):
secrete alarm pheromones.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Which we talked about our previous episode.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
So in the study, they conducted four separate tests that
exposed people to putre sine. They found time and time
and time again that people encountering this substance were edgy,
were stressed, were under duress. Just sensing it created a
cognitive reaction that related to a fight or flight mechanism.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
This isn't used in smelling salts, is it? Or one
of those things that make you just go, you know,
adrenaline into action. It looks like it's not a common
additive or ingredient in smelling salts that are available, at
least commercially. That would just be alcohol and ammonia, which
(39:42):
many of us lovingly know as cat pep. But you know,
or at least the scent of it, the loft of
the cat pep, it is oppressive.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Yeah, the litterbox napal one percent.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
I do wonder though, if putre scene has any interesting
uses for Maybe some folks from that death metal community
might want to like bottle it up and sell it
as a scent.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yeah, yeah, you know. On that note, there does seem
to be an opportunity in the market for repellent fragrance
alarm warning go away kind of stuff. I'm interested to
see the research DARPA over to you. Okay, guys, so
(40:26):
hop too on that.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Sprinkle it all around the bunker.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Sprinkle it all around. Please. If you are a high
level diplomat and you're going to have a difficult conversation,
just slap some of that on your pits because they'll
say he has to get out of the room. So
in this trial, this is interesting. So they have these
four different tests that we're describing. In one trial, they
(40:52):
have sixty people open a jar. Open the jar and
snarf it, give it a huff. Some of these people
encounter or ammonia smelling salts. It's a gross but not
terrifying odor. Others met the smell of putracine or met
the molecules of puture scene. And afterwards they sit in
(41:14):
front of a screen, these participants and they have to
stare at the screen until a red dot randomly and
unpredictably appears. The folks who huffed putre scene were consistently
quicker to react to clock and identify the dot, and
this indicates to the scientists that something about encountering this
(41:35):
smell makes people more vigilant. It's a weird performance.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Buff That's so strange because the the the ammonia in
spelling salt is meant to do the same thing, right,
that's the theoretical use of those is to take a
huff and then go work out or then go you know,
fighting in the octagon and that kind of thing. Like,
I mean really like that's what they're use because it
gets your drone pumping, and it theoretically makes you ready
(42:03):
for war or ready to take on anything that's coming
at you.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Dude.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
Not to keep harping on the death metal stuff, but
I distinctly remember this this feature in Spin magazine back
in the day when I was like a teenager about
the Norwegian black metal scene, and there was this one
dude who had this like dead crow carcass that he
kept in a bag and he would huff a whiff
of it before every show and he described it as
getting the putrification of death in his nostrils and it
(42:29):
would give him like a pump, a pumped up kind
of vibe to perform, to perform the metals.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Well, thinking about this experiment and then the way they're
testing it with that red dot, you guys, what does
that make you think about just identifying a red dot in.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Darkness, Oh right, like eyes of predators.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, that's what it makes me think about it at least.
So then I imagine, you know this need, this evolutionary
need to be able to look out into you know,
the forest or something and just pick out when set
of eyes is illuminated by the fire or something because.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
You've smelled the carcass, which means a predator may be nearby.
Also shout out to that reference the name of the
musician you're talking about. No, what like the stage name
was actually dead that's from the band Mam, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
That's right from Ayem. Yeah, I remember Spooky Dude, I
remember too.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Like, it makes it makes sense that future scene would
elicit this instinctual, unconscious reaction. And you know, we have
to wonder how much more testing can be done here.
There is another weird test they did, by the way,
and I think you're on the money, Matt, with the
concept of predator identification. So we said they have four studies.
(43:47):
In two more of these experiments on a university campus,
they randomly stopped something like one hundred ish people. So
a guy walks up to you and they say, do
you have time to help us out. We'll do it.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
I really got to get a class.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
But yeah, okay, okay, yeah, it's just real quick. Okay,
so will you uh, will you start? Will you lean
into this jar and just huff it real quick? It's
it's fine, we work for the college.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Can you only live once?
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Dom?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I gotta go?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Could you describe always walking away?
Speaker 4 (44:26):
I was running.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
He's right, okay, get the next one, Get the next one,
ted ted, get the next one. That's literally what happened.
They went up to people with these jars, uh, and
some of these jars had puture scene, and they asked
random folks to huff from the jar, and just like
you so beautifully depicted Matt, after snarfing the future scene,
(44:49):
people walked away faster than the folks who had smelled ammonia.
And still the folks who smelled ammonia were properly thinking,
you guys are what I have to go to poly
side in four minutes.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
This is not cool. This is not cool.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
It's also a moment to ask, I mean, you're a
college student, and portrayed that so well, Matt, what would
you what would we do if a random person came
up to you and asked you to huff from an
unidentified jar.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
You just I think you walk away before you hear
the whole thing out.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
I don't think. I don't think I give him time
to give me the full spiel.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, there's an episode of Radio Rental that just came
out recently where there's a story about jars filled with
the stuff in them. It was like a true story.
This reminder to go listen to Radio Rental you a chance,
because you'll hear real stories like about this. But guys,
(45:55):
I didn't know that future scene is, at least from
what I'm reading, a solid which is cross to think
about first of all, But then even worse is thinking
about cadaverine, which is it's a it's very similar. They
call it a homologue of future scene, but it is
like the go.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, it's the gag, it's the gunk. Yeah, the uh,
it's the gushy stuff.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Oh that is absolutely to be fair.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
But they're talking about different gushy stuff to be to
be fair as well. Yeah, cadavering, get it, like a
cadaver da da da da. Puture scene and cadavering are responsible,
we believe for the odor of putrefying flesh across multiple organisms.
These were first described by Ludwig Braeger back in eighteen
(46:55):
eighty five, but science didn't really understand how these molecules
affected healthy human beings until much much later. So that
proves to us, yes, death has a smell. In some cases,
impending death has a smell that other people can clock
(47:16):
before the dying person can, because it can be very
difficult to smell yourself, which is just another you know,
stuff they don't want you to know. Hygiene tip. We're
not we're not busting anybody's bones here. We're not being judgmental.
But if you spell yourself, your breath, your body scent,
(47:36):
and you think it's unpleasant, get these to a washroom.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Everyone else certainly can't. Yeah, yeah, no question, guys.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Before we move on to the next stuff, can we
talk about cadaver dogs really fast?
Speaker 4 (47:53):
Always a fascinating subject.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
We brought them up many times, and as we talked
about on the top of the show, dogs came just
have this incredible sense of smell and they can pick
stuff out and they could be trained pretty easily. It's
not easy to train a dog to hunt for anything, right.
A drug sniffing dog cadaverdog anything or you know some
(48:15):
a dog that hunts for missing persons or things like that.
But it is easier than training any other animal, and
you can't train a human to do it because we
don't have the hardware. So it is kind of cool
just how it can be done. And just talking there
about what was that year eighteen eighty five, eighteen eighty five,
so like eighty years almost before that, the first theoretical
(48:41):
cadaver dog was born and didn't know it was going
into action, but it did when it sniffed around an
old shed and found that a police at the time
found two dead bodies buried beneath that shed, and it
was because the dog could just smell something was going
on in that shed top. Yeah, well after death. So
(49:02):
this is like smelling future scene and you know, all
the all the other stuff, all the hits, but again
but deep underground.
Speaker 5 (49:11):
They don't even have to be fresh though, isn't the
thing that's There's a plot point in a Curb episode
where they're opening a restaurant where construction gets delayed because
of a corpse sniffing dog finds a body buried underneath
the foundation of the restaurant.
Speaker 4 (49:24):
And they have to dig it up and then do
you know an investigation.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Oh, when Larry's coming back?
Speaker 4 (49:30):
Just yeah, he's working with Obama. Obama.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
Well, I think he's doing another season and Curbed too.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
Well, I think it's called curb though there's something else.
It's a sketch thing. Yeah, like producer. That's what he
that's what he does.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Amazing. Well, but guys, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to go
back here, but just that led down a little rabbit
hole of the number of human beings that get buried
underneath a concrete slab or get incorporated into do the structures,
the concrete structures of buildings. Yes, there's way too much
(50:07):
stuff out there, way too many stories to even mention
right now. But this cadaver dogs specifically are the thing
you can use to find that kind of stuff because
the depth that a human body can be in a
state of decomposition is astounding. And then a dog can
still smell it.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yes, absolutely, because they have such phenomenal sensory ability. And
you know, it brings us back to another point we
often discover in the widest of conversations. As human technology improves, right,
and as humans make breakthroughs on technological fronts, civilization just
(50:52):
gets closer and closer to existing organic mechanisms. Right, You
can't really like the reason people use cadaver dogs and
rescue dogs or land mind sensing rats, for example. And
I'm a huge proponent of that, as you guys know,
is because these creatures already do things better than the
(51:17):
mechanisms that people can build. That's a little bit of
a word salad, but it's an important point, you know.
We know it gets even weirder, right if we just
take it back to humans. A lot of these reactions
that you're going to have to the smell of a
medical condition or death, they're often going to be sub
(51:38):
or unconscious. Every time you smell another person, you are
running a low key medical diagnostic on them. You are
making a diagnosis of their what's the fancy word, their
odor print, you know, like how people have fingerprints, everybody
has an odor print as well. That was so weird
(51:58):
to me. I guess it felt more powerful because there
was a specific word associated.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
It's a cool word. It's not just like a little
catchy buzzphrase, right.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
No, yeah, it is a It is an actual technical term.
It's a phrase encapsulating the sum of all the aromas
and individual emits, your breath, your blood, urine A. It's
a gestaltic snapshot of your age, your sex, your diet,
your metabolism, and of course your health. And multiple, multiple,
(52:30):
multiple studies show that people tend to smell more quote
unquote aversive when they're under the weather, not even when
you're dying. But sickness can have a smell. Different medical
conditions can have a smell that repels other people, even
if they are not aware of it consciously. A few examples.
(52:53):
Someone with yellow fever can smell like a butcher's shop,
like meat being chopped. Someone with typhoid can smell like
baked bread. Folks battling diabetes and we can confirm this
one firsthand, can smell faintly of rotting apples, and we
know why. It's because of the acetode released on the breath.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
WHOA.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
So, even if you're not a super smeller Jerry style,
you will likely be able to clock these sense and
everything instinctively inside you, even if you're not aware of it,
Everything instinctly inside you will be telling you to go away.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah, you've probably experienced something like this when you've had
somebody you probably in your family, or a child or
a parent or something that just has a weird smell
about them all of a sudden and you notice that, oh,
they're starting to sneeze a lot, and then they get sick,
or you encounter someone who has a specific smell and
it's hard to even place, but it's to me, it's
(53:57):
the same kind of thing where you're smelling sickness, right,
You're attuned to sickness, not a specific virus or specific
infection or something. It's just your body. Your body knows
and senses, Oh this, I need to stay away from
this person where they're not going to sneeze on me.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (54:16):
Exactly. Yes, you can not only smell death, you can
smell sickness if all your mechanisms are functioning properly. And
there is a positive note that may surprise several of
us here in the audience today, when healthy people encounter
these sick smell signals, which are just kind of the
part and parcel of the six signals, right, the red eyes,
(54:41):
staggered movement, sweat and flim that kind of stuff. When
you encounter those six smell signals, your own body can
kick into gear and slightly but measurably increase your own
immune activity. So even if you can't explain it to yourself,
your body is taking action to protect you. That's person
(55:03):
smells sick, says your body to itself, but not to
you consciously. We got to get out of here. Also,
let's shift up the second gear real quick.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Yep, to rush away from these guys in their jars.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
These tries. Why oh why did I smell that random jar?
I've got to stop listening to people just because they're
wearied lab coats.
Speaker 4 (55:27):
Damn it.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
So there we go. I mean, this is, I guess
less a case of stuff they don't want you to know,
a more case of stuff your body knows and doesn't
bother consciously telling you we owe a lot to Dogs
are residents, super smellers. They're going to play a big
role in early detection of medical conditions in the years
(55:48):
to come. There was actually research on creating an artificial
dog nose, and it's worthwhile research, but it solves a
problem humanity doesn't have because we already have dogs. Shout
out Apollo, who's being so good as we record.
Speaker 4 (56:05):
Very kind of shocking right Oky forgetting he's there.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
So we also have it mentioned false positives. So there
are times you can smell bad due to something positive,
like entering ketosis. If you're working out, you're on a
keto diet, or having a strenuous exercise or sex session,
you know you're gonna end up with a smell. But
death and sickness do have a smell. It's an invisible,
(56:31):
often unconscious, highly sophisticated warning system meant to safeguard the species.
And as we mentioned, you know a lot of us, unfortunately,
have firsthand experience with this. If you're comfortable sharing your
own stories times you have smelled mortality, we'd love to
hear them. You can send us an email, you can
give us a call. You can find us on the
(56:52):
lines that's right.
Speaker 5 (56:53):
You can sniff us out at the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on x FKA, Twitter, on YouTube with
video content.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
Galore for your enjoyment, and.
Speaker 5 (57:04):
Also on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it
gets crazy. On Instagram and TikTok. However, you'll have to
smell us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
If you'd like to call us and use your mouth
to say words into a telephonic device, why not call
one eight three three STDWYTK. When you call in, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know within the
message if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you've got something else to say, maybe
in word form, why not instead send us an email.
Speaker 3 (57:35):
We are the entities to read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet out of freid. Sometimes
the void writes back, please, please, please, folks help us out.
What on God's green earth is that fake limon chemical?
I can't get it out of the back of my
mouth right now.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
It smells like cleaner, floor cleaner.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
But why is it in food? What if you re
see at iHeartRadio dot.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Com, stuff they don't want you to know. Is a
(58:23):
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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