November 17, 2011 • 25 mins
Did you know that smell is the only one of your senses with a direct connection to your brain? Or that fancy cheese and David Beckham's foot odor share the same molecular smells? In this episode, Robert and Julie break down the amazing science of smell.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And uh,
we're gonna talk about smells smell and and don't turn
up the podcast. You made it this far into a
podcast about smells. Yeah, because that's the thing. The sense
(00:26):
of smell is amazing, and it is mind blowing. We
we end up taking it for granted. But but it's
one of the strongest senses that we have. Out of
all the five. It's the only one that interacts directly
with the brain. And and just imagine how boring the
world would be without it, and and and also take
into account that we really haven't studied it seriously scientifically
until the last couple of decades, Like there was a
(00:48):
but before that, if you were like, I'm going to
scientifically study smell, I'm really interested in how things smell
and what makes something stink, and what makes something smell good,
and how something that could the same odor could sort
of smell good. If we thought of one thing and stink,
if we thought it was the other people would laugh
at you. They would say a ha, ha, why don't
you go study ghosts or something? Right? Right? Right? Did
they ever think that there would be a whole industry
(01:10):
that is uh built on smell, Like, for instance, if
you go into the gap, if you go into that retailer,
there is a specific smell that was created just for
that store, keeping you the customer in mind, you know,
sort of fresh light smell to try to manipulate your Yeah.
It goes far beyond just the perfume industry or anything
of that nature. It gets into into what kind of
(01:31):
smells do people react to, how to how to smells
interact with our memories? Um, wine and then wine is
a one smell appealed to say, one group of people
and not to another. It just gets it gets crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
And so today we're gonna talk about smells, but we're
don't trying to talk about it in a little bit
of an unorthodox way. And uh, I'm not lying here.
(01:51):
We're gonna talk about David Beckham's foot at one point.
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, So so let's get into it
all right. Well, a lot of this came from a
panel that I attended at the at the World Science
Festival in New York in June of two thousand eleven.
We're both up there hitting various panels and this one
was called Sense and Sensibilities, right, yes, take on, Jane Austen. Yeah,
(02:14):
and it was a really cool one. Like all of
them barely got there in time, because it was like,
you know, taking the train and then trying to figure
out where I was supposed to go, and then using
the phone to try and triangulate exactly where I was
and where it was. It was very and as you
were looking at the phone bumping into the building and
realizing that was a building that you needed to hoof
it into. Yeah, and uh, it was a great panel.
(02:36):
And one of the things they did they did a
really interesting smell test where everybody had these different cards
under their well, they weren't under the chair, but they
were handed out to It was lightly It was just
that if they were under the chair and each one
has a number, and then you smell it and then
they would vote to see what people thought the smell was.
So um, I thought we might just run through these
real quick. Okay, let's do it all right. So this
(02:58):
is we're going to count down from the top. This
is number four, number four, and this is a little card.
It has you gotta peel the plastic back. I can
smell something kind of smells kind of good, but it's
very faint langline. I don't know what that is. It's
a it's a like a lily smell. Okay, so you
can kind of a like a sweet plant kind of smell.
(03:19):
From what is number four? Then I will have up
to my nose. It is a Tahitian flower by the
name of t R So there you go. You were
pretty close that I was gonna say Tahitian flower. Yeah,
well it's it's frequently used in you know, kind of
perfumey smells. Now number three mm hm, okay, this smells
like it sounds good, but because it also smells like
(03:42):
under arm plus like maybe a drier sheet. Oh that's
that's very spot on because it's musk, which is of
course musk, you know, musky odors, but musk is also
an important ingredient, very in soap products. That's funny. I
felt like I should I say I like that, us
I feel a little dirty and saying that I like this.
That was my initial squeeze directed directly from a muskrat,
(04:05):
and then the final one. This is number one, and
this one is actually double wrapped, so you'll have to
take it out of the plastic. Hey, if it's double wrap,
it's probably pretty pungent, right, Well, that would seem to imply,
oh goodness, yeah it is. It's still strong after so
many months. I mean, it's clearly smells like cheese, and
(04:27):
it's like a very pungent cheese. I mean, I'm not
gonna say it's cheddar, but it's it's strong. Yeah. This
one was the most fun at this festival because people
were throwing out various ideas from the audience, things of
such as, it's under arm, it's its feet, it's uh,
it's body odor, it's it's locker funk, it's and then
(04:47):
other people are saying it's Lindburger, it's Swiss, it's uh,
you know, it's it's some sort of weird pots, Robert,
what have I just put up to my nose? David
Beckham's feet Apparently this was taking This smell was taken
directly from David Beckham's foot funk and then made into
a chemical form and then brushed under the all these
little cards and then handed out to people attending this
(05:09):
particular panel. Alright, So I mean I read about not
necessarily this that you just put in my nose, but
that his foot has been studied before. I didn't realize
that was quite a specimen. I mean, his molecules are
they're they're just rumbling around my nose right now and
touching your brain. I should really say. Yeah, I have
(05:32):
to say it's a little bit disturbing, especially since I
like cheese. Um, I really do. And that is that
is the weird thing, Like the same smell in a
different context. Um, at least cheese fans would be like, oh,
that smells delightful. There was a an art opening I
was helping at here in town that my wife was organizing,
and there was some cheese on hand, and so Bonnie
(05:54):
was unwrapping it and getting ready on the table, and
I was doing something else, like getting lighting or sound
ready for the event, and I smelled this odor and
I'm like, oh, my goodness, we're about to have this
art event and a mouse has died in the wall.
What are we gonna do? It's like, I don't I
don't know how to get back there and get it,
Like clearly something has died. And then I found it
out that knows this cheese and uh. And and then
later we had some friends that were attending it who
(06:17):
are big freendshophiles and really in cheese. They were like, oh,
this smells great. Can we take it home and devour it?
And we're like, yes, please, yes, please, please take the
dead mouse home because it is is stinking up the space.
So different different circumstances, different ideas about where the smell
is coming from, has a huge impact on whether it
is a good smell or a bad smell. Different cultures, right, um,
(06:38):
and there was a woman on this panel. Cecil told us,
the Norwegian odor artist. Oh, yes, she was awesome. Yeah.
I mean you know, by the way, this is all online,
so you can go to World Science Festival put in
sense s c e n T s s c n
s e uh sense and sensibilities and you can see
some of this stuff. It's great. She is uh. They
(07:01):
call her an udor provocateur, and she's really like a
warrior for smell. In the same way that you hear
a lot of parents arguing that okay, you should not
let a child say that a food is yucky, or
you should not say, oh, this taste bad in front
of a child, Like she takes it even farther than
we should not talk about things stinking or smelling bad.
And I kind of on the same boat when it
comes to cheese, Like when I hear people talk about,
(07:23):
who I'm gonna try a stinky cheese, I'm like, don't
use that word. Use a different word for the thing
that you like. Don't say stinky. Say it's a pungent, pungent,
pungent I like, or fragrant, expressive cheese, but don't say stinky.
And that was one of the things she was talking about.
It's like, we have to, you know, we have to
bring up a new generation that has a more nuanced
way of talking about smell, because for a lot of people,
(07:44):
it's just like, oh, that's a good smell, and that's
a bad smell. And it's a lot more complicated than that. Yeah,
And that's kind of what put her on her whole journey.
She said to herself, can I think beyond the dichotomies
of good and bad sense? And she certainly has plumbed
the subject to like he has broken the other side. Yeah,
she makes me think of the guy um who who
the Kloica machine who who is very interested in feces
(08:07):
and his exploration of this in our relationship to this,
this smell, this, this this material, and she does it
the same way with smell um and really forces you
to think about the topic. Yeah. Yeah, but it's so,
it's very it's very very interesting that she dived into this,
And I wanted to mention a couple of things that
(08:27):
that make that even more intriguing. Um, And that's considering
what's actually happening to your inside your nose when you
are sensing a smell um. Like you said, it's the
only sense with a direct connection to the brain. So
when you breathe chemicals into your nose, you have proteins
that bind to millions of molecules, and these molecules rush
(08:48):
into your nose and they get really cozy with the
nerve endings of your brains. With factory bulb and you
have four hundred receptors trying to suss out the different
smells um. So say you're walking down the street in
New York early on the sunny morning in July, You're
gonna be bombarded with a bunch of different smells. Yes,
it is a city of amazing stinks. For sure. It
is it is um or. You know, the day before
(09:09):
garbage pickup, right, it's it's um or. You go past
a pizza parlor and your your brain is trying to
make sense of all this old factory input. So um,
it's it's very interesting when you think about it that way. UM.
And we think about vision is being really complex, but
when we're talking about vision or something like color blindness,
really you're talking about three primary colors that you're perceiving.
But when you're talking about smells, you're talking about fifteen
(09:33):
thousand identifiable smells that are out there so far. Right,
Like you said, this is a pretty young field, the
field of smells. And as we walk around, we're all
carrying around this database of of smells with us. Um Like,
not only the smells that we recognize in our in
our mind, because I think we've all had that situation
where we're walking down the street and with a different
smell will hit us out of nowhere, and suddenly we're
(09:54):
transported back to our childhood or something, right, and and
sometimes we're not even sure what that odor was. It's
not like, oh, the smell of fresh peaches that it
takes me back. I don't know why. I know you had.
All Italians are talking about peaches, but but I'm thinking
about New York streets. I guess I don't know, but
but more like you like, for me, it's like a
smell will hit me and I it will be an
(10:15):
unclassifiable smell, like I'm not sure what that odor is,
but it takes me back. But but so not only
those the odors of memory, but also just the odors
on our person in our coat. Well. I was actually
thinking about that a lot today because I'm wearing this
vintage velvet jacket and it's one of my mom's curnies.
Actually gave it to me, and it's really sweet, love it,
(10:36):
but it has this Yeah, it's very shiny, and it
has the scent of her perfume on it. It's clean,
but obviously this is something that survived it and so
I feel like I'm wearing the autobiography of someone else
right now, and it's a little disconcerting. Um just to
every once in a while smell this scent. But this
is one of the things that se sell To Lost
the the odor artists really wanted to check out, and
(10:59):
she did the us by analyzing a bunch of coats
from the citizens and uh, I think it was the Montpelier, France. Yeah,
she took their coats and analyzed it. Um. Basically, she
used her her nose to try to figure out the
different profiles of smell. And before anybody scoffed at that,
this is actually, um, this is something that perfumers do
(11:22):
all the time. You can really train your nose to
detect the most minute smell or so this is something
that's real, by the way, and um ce cel Tolass
is like she's a giant in her field, so she's
pretty well respected. And she actually has created sense for
product Um, Calvin Klein and all sorts of other people,
so she knows what she's talking about here. Um. But anyway,
(11:46):
she has also just another little interesting fact about her.
She has a smell archive preserved in seven thousand, six
hundred and thirty air tight jars which feature dirty fabric,
chunks of fried fish or dried fish, rotten bananas, a
hundred and fifty variations on dog poo, and her favorite
(12:06):
aroma that of her thirteen year old daughter, which I
thought was really cool. So anyway, this this expert on
odor takes these coats and analyzes them and what does
she find, Well that there's a complex bouquet going on there.
Right in the term that bouquet, there's some top notes
and there are some bottom notes for sure. Yeah, like
there's a certain amount of like fecal odor. Yeah, yeah,
(12:27):
there was. There was one product coat that was analyzed
and had two percent dog feces, five percent soy sauce,
six percent gasoline smell, nine percent Jill Sander after shave.
By the way, this aftershave was not the after shave
of her husband. It was of someone else. Um ten
percent codfish, twelve percent channel number five, which is the
(12:50):
scent she wore, and twenty six percent tobacco sweat. Wow,
where is the cod fish coming from? I mean, she
must have just had a little codfish for for lunch
before she gave her codo her or they had one
of those freak days where like rained cod. Yes, yeah,
that was probably one of those days. Ye frogs the
day before than cod. But yeah, all this stuff is
in our clothes and we're walking around and we think
(13:11):
that we're so clean, especially here, you know, in the
United States, where we're obsessed with sanitizing ourselves and covering up. Well, yeah,
because I'm clean is an interesting topic just in and
of itself, because we over time have taken idea of
hygiene and the idea of spiritual purity and and intertwined
the two to the point where in many cultures there's
just no pulling them apart again, right right, So, I
(13:34):
mean it's just and she will say, uh, this artist
that the West is way too obsessed with sanitizing and
we should get a little bit more comfortable with the
different smells that we have, like the smell of fear,
which we will talk about right after this. This podcast
is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow
(13:55):
and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is
the spark which drives innovation. Join us a curiosity dot
com and explore the answers to life's questions. So the
smell of fear and this this really this boils down
to to some of the you know, a lot of
(14:16):
what we can discuss about the evolution of our sense
of smell in where a place. Because if you can
smell fear, and you hear that a lot, it's like,
don't mess with that guy. He can smell fear. Don't
be weird around this dog. It can smell fear. The
idea that that we're emitting some sort of odor, be
that just a some be it just sort of a
body funk or an actual pheromone that says, I am afraid, right,
(14:36):
I am on edge and a little terrified. Uh. It's
it's a fascinating concept because you would not want to
emit that odor. You would want to admit the I'm
pretty awesome and could beat up a dog kind of right,
right right, Because again here we have with these molecules
being sucked up by our noses, and we are detecting
all of this on a very subtle level, which which
(14:57):
again this the odor artist is um using this to
try to explore, you know, all these different happenstances of
our humanity, like fear. So cecil to lost the artists
we were talking about, she also went after this whole
fear smell thing, and she ended up this is two
thousand six. Shed analyzed all these different examples of men
(15:20):
in a state of fear. These these were men, by
the way, who had chronic states of fear. Right, It
wasn't just like every once a while they were scared,
but for various reasons. They were under dress. Yeah, you know,
maybe they were a veteran or something, and they were
able to, you know, summon this sphere for the experiment,
and they took samples from their their under arms. And
in this in two thousand six, Cecil covered the walls
(15:42):
of an M. I. T. Gallery with and I mean
officially not you know, she didn't go in there, just
do it after the lights were out. She had she
had an exhibit. Yeah, imagine like basically imagine walking into
an exhibit hall and it looks like all the paintings
are gone and you're like, oh, I'm kind of bummed out.
I came here for an art show. And then you
is no, instead of going up and looking at a painting,
(16:03):
you're going up to that blank canvas and you're sniffing.
That's right, because this wall is a metaphor for the skin, right,
And she's basically she's chemically reproduced the molecules from the
sweat of these men that she studied who were suffering fear.
And and you're going up and you're getting to smell
different variations on that odor. And she she mentioned that
there was one individual who had who had been in
(16:25):
the war and uh, and he was smelling like an
Asian um fear odor and the dye was like brought
to tears because he was like, this really takes me
back to this guy who during the war. Is that amazing?
It is amazing? Yeah, yeah, um. And and how she
did this as pretty interesting too. She used micro encapsulation
technology to produce a gloss paint that releases its scent
(16:46):
when gently touched. Scratch and sniff, yeah, scratch and stiff
wall of fear basically, so you have these nine different
smells of fear, you know, from these nine different men
and uh, and all of these guys, like you said
that they collected their sweat during um when they were
under duress. And one of them actually was a guy
who engaged in s and M and so he collected
(17:08):
his perspiration when he visited sex clubs. So he's he's
he has a fearful odor emitting from this upright, because
I mean that's part of his um. I mean, yes,
he was aroused, but it's he has to experience fear
in order to be aroused. So they were collecting that.
So again that's what we're talking about, like very different situations,
but all of them fear based. Yeah, and so can
(17:31):
you imagine you're just kind of scratching and sniffing around
this wall and you're getting these different profiles of smell,
and like you said, the guy that that perceived his
friend in this one smell who wasn't obviously his friend
is pretty amazing. Yeah, it kind of boils down to
two to some of the stuff we've talked about about
how their stuff going on in our brain, we're not
conscious off like a lot of stuff under the surface
(17:52):
of the waves of human cognition, and and certainly the
processing of smells is just another one of those things. Always.
I was just thinking about that too, like how we
arrive at an idea and we keep thinking we have
these aha moments, when in fact we talked about this before,
like do we actually have free will? But it's all
being Our perception is being colored all the time, and
these ah ha moments rise to the surface after they've
(18:15):
been vetted um in so many different subconscious ways, like
you said, like smells. So again, like we discussed the
towards the top of the podcast, funky Smell, if we
pair that with a picture of a foot, were repulsed
pair it with a picture of you know, a fancy
um hard or soft cheese, and we're more likely to salivate,
right right, scratch us. If a wall, we're scared. Um.
(18:38):
But yeah, I mean it is all in the way
that it's uh, it's packaged. And again you have the
odor artists responsible for making something called human bacteria cheese,
which brings the two together into one product. The fear
in the fear and then the attraction to cheese, and
here it is in one product. Yeah, yeah, I think
(18:59):
it's fascinating. She wanted to know what happens when I
grow an edible substance from my own body, uh bacteria
and then eat it. Yeah yeah, So again she this
fascination with smell that she in bacteria. Um. She decided
that this body bacteria would be the ideal organism uh
(19:19):
to carry a smelly bacterium closely related to human armpits
and feet. She took working samples, She collected them from
friends and family, and then she simulated and coagulated them
into a range of ripe taste sensations like Daisy's armpit,
Philosopher's toe, Chris Christina's hand, and Sile's foot. Well, if
(19:41):
I had to go for one hour ago for Philosopher's toe. Yeah,
I know that sounds like it could be uh nutty,
mild with a surprising end. Yeah, and there's a great
foot in mouth kind of metaphor going oh yeah, yes, yes,
nice nice um. But and you know you had we
talked about David Beckham's foot before, and it turns out
that I don't think she actually grew any cheese from
(20:02):
his samples, but she could, that's the the amusing thing.
She could, she absolutely could. But it turns out that
his particular odor has the chemical construction most similar to
a Belgian Limburger cheese. So there, So if you want
to partake in in our reaction to David Beckham's foot,
(20:25):
just go find a nice lumburger and give it a whiff.
There you go, There you go. That's that's what we
were smelling. But it really is an interesting idea that,
you know, if you get very hard up for a
food source, you could actually sort of grow your own
cheese from your body. Right. Well, I met a hippie
girl once who had made mead like the alcoholic beverage
that the old ale like the old Ale a medieval
(20:47):
stuff and she had used like under her own under
armed funk too to like kick started. So well that
is artists and crafted mead right there. I mean I
can't argue against that. I did not try it, but um,
it existed, so I'm sure it probably was delicious. Who knows, Yeah,
I guess. I mean it just comes down to the
whole How do we semantically categorized something. How do we
(21:10):
distance something from its source. It's like I did a
blog postal wall back titled U all water has been
pooped in or something of that effect what I titled it.
But basically the argument is, at some point in the
fact pass any water that we drink has been foul
like it is, it is probably fallen out of a
dinosaur's cloak at some point in the path. Well yeah, yeah,
and and but we don't really think about that because
(21:31):
it's it's transferred through nature, it's gone down a stream,
and then here it is. It's so it's fresh water. Well,
companies and government will say to Okay, yeah, they're not
gonna call it sewer treated water, but they're gonna say, ah,
it was um, you know, it was filtered through this
underground compartment in which you know, and then charcoal blah
blah blah. So again there's the semantic distancing and this
idea of well, it may have had urine in at
(21:54):
one point, but by the time it reached you know,
a mile out this way, it's fresh and pure, like
you know, Rocky Mountain spring. Yeah. I mean you don't
want to think about the fact when you go to
a restaurant there maybe human skin cell flakes on your food.
There are for sure, Yeah, I mean just it's just
gonna happen. But but yeah, it's like we we it's like,
how do we interpret this smell? How do we interpret
the source of something that is entering our lives or
(22:16):
our bodies? Yeah, and I would be interested to know, like, Okay,
given all this information about smell, has has this changed
your perception at all about smell the things that that
you detect? Um? You know it? Do you think it's
as mood altering? Is it as some people say it is? Well?
I think we all have our favorite since you know
that really kick starts like you were talking about, like
(22:36):
coffee is an interesting one. Like there's a local coffee
shop that I go to a lot to write, um
called Joe's in case anyone wants to seek it out
in Atlanta, I just don't bother me while I'm there,
because I'm working. He's the guy with a blue shirt
that says boards of Canada on it. Okay, yeah, yeah,
I wear this every day. But I'll leave there smelling
(22:58):
like coffee. And while i'm they're like the small coffee
is comforting. Occasionally they'll also be like a bomb that
walks in it, like reeks of right guard for some reason.
But but like sanitizing. Yeah, it's better than what lays beneath, right,
but but any right, like, the smell of coffee for
me is very comforting. It's like a very like oh
it's it's coffee time. It's it's like a thought like
personal creativity kind of a scent for me. But for
(23:20):
you it's it's not a pleasant one, right, No, Because
I used to smoke, and so I've spent all our
time um in coffee houses. Uh, not smoking clothes cigarettes,
don't worry that wasn't doing that, but writing and smoking
h And so every time I come home from a
coffee shop and I smell that that coffee smell, I
I immediately think of like headache, like past Um, I
(23:43):
mean nothing like terribly nefarious, just just something that I
don't enjoy doing anymore, and I don't enjoy smelling. There
you go. I mean it's tied to memories, It's tied
to past experiences and expectations. So yeah, it's the proost effect, right.
I can't help but but have some sort of memory,
especially since that's what it stimulates. I mean, smells stimula,
it's communication memory. Um, I'll part to your bringing that
(24:04):
are connected to all right, Well, well there you go,
sort of an intro to how mind blowing smell can be.
And in a future podcast episode, we're going to talk
about the future of smell and how technology can and
will enable us to manipulate this amazing Can we call
it the fifth sense? I don't know. I don't know
where it ranks in the numbers. I guess it depends
(24:26):
on how they execute it. I'm calling it the fifth cent.
How we can manipulate the fifth cent and uh and
and use it to enhance products, which I think is
gonna be an exciting episode. But in the meantime, let
us know what you think about the smells in your life,
in this realm of scent that surrounds you like, like what,
how does a favorite smell factor into your life? How
(24:47):
does a least favorite smell? And where do you stand
on the whole cheese foot situation. You can let us
know by dropping by Facebook or Twitter. We are blow
the mind on both of those, and certainly especially on
the Facebook is it's just a great place to interact
with us, ask us questions, share things with other listeners. Uh,
I really enjoyed. Yeah, we've had some great post front
(25:08):
people out there. Um. So, Also, you can take a
stab at creating a profile from your own jacket scent
profile and you can send us what you think that
is composed of uh, and you can email us at
below the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be
(25:30):
sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And uh,
we're gonna talk about smells smell and and don't turn
up the podcast. You made it this far into a
podcast about smells. Yeah, because that's the thing. The sense
(00:26):
of smell is amazing, and it is mind blowing. We
we end up taking it for granted. But but it's
one of the strongest senses that we have. Out of
all the five. It's the only one that interacts directly
with the brain. And and just imagine how boring the
world would be without it, and and and also take
into account that we really haven't studied it seriously scientifically
until the last couple of decades, Like there was a
(00:48):
but before that, if you were like, I'm going to
scientifically study smell, I'm really interested in how things smell
and what makes something stink, and what makes something smell good,
and how something that could the same odor could sort
of smell good. If we thought of one thing and stink,
if we thought it was the other people would laugh
at you. They would say a ha, ha, why don't
you go study ghosts or something? Right? Right? Right? Did
they ever think that there would be a whole industry
(01:10):
that is uh built on smell, Like, for instance, if
you go into the gap, if you go into that retailer,
there is a specific smell that was created just for
that store, keeping you the customer in mind, you know,
sort of fresh light smell to try to manipulate your Yeah.
It goes far beyond just the perfume industry or anything
of that nature. It gets into into what kind of
(01:31):
smells do people react to, how to how to smells
interact with our memories? Um, wine and then wine is
a one smell appealed to say, one group of people
and not to another. It just gets it gets crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
And so today we're gonna talk about smells, but we're
don't trying to talk about it in a little bit
of an unorthodox way. And uh, I'm not lying here.
(01:51):
We're gonna talk about David Beckham's foot at one point.
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, So so let's get into it
all right. Well, a lot of this came from a
panel that I attended at the at the World Science
Festival in New York in June of two thousand eleven.
We're both up there hitting various panels and this one
was called Sense and Sensibilities, right, yes, take on, Jane Austen. Yeah,
(02:14):
and it was a really cool one. Like all of
them barely got there in time, because it was like,
you know, taking the train and then trying to figure
out where I was supposed to go, and then using
the phone to try and triangulate exactly where I was
and where it was. It was very and as you
were looking at the phone bumping into the building and
realizing that was a building that you needed to hoof
it into. Yeah, and uh, it was a great panel.
(02:36):
And one of the things they did they did a
really interesting smell test where everybody had these different cards
under their well, they weren't under the chair, but they
were handed out to It was lightly It was just
that if they were under the chair and each one
has a number, and then you smell it and then
they would vote to see what people thought the smell was.
So um, I thought we might just run through these
real quick. Okay, let's do it all right. So this
(02:58):
is we're going to count down from the top. This
is number four, number four, and this is a little card.
It has you gotta peel the plastic back. I can
smell something kind of smells kind of good, but it's
very faint langline. I don't know what that is. It's
a it's a like a lily smell. Okay, so you
can kind of a like a sweet plant kind of smell.
(03:19):
From what is number four? Then I will have up
to my nose. It is a Tahitian flower by the
name of t R So there you go. You were
pretty close that I was gonna say Tahitian flower. Yeah,
well it's it's frequently used in you know, kind of
perfumey smells. Now number three mm hm, okay, this smells
like it sounds good, but because it also smells like
(03:42):
under arm plus like maybe a drier sheet. Oh that's
that's very spot on because it's musk, which is of
course musk, you know, musky odors, but musk is also
an important ingredient, very in soap products. That's funny. I
felt like I should I say I like that, us
I feel a little dirty and saying that I like this.
That was my initial squeeze directed directly from a muskrat,
(04:05):
and then the final one. This is number one, and
this one is actually double wrapped, so you'll have to
take it out of the plastic. Hey, if it's double wrap,
it's probably pretty pungent, right, Well, that would seem to imply,
oh goodness, yeah it is. It's still strong after so
many months. I mean, it's clearly smells like cheese, and
(04:27):
it's like a very pungent cheese. I mean, I'm not
gonna say it's cheddar, but it's it's strong. Yeah. This
one was the most fun at this festival because people
were throwing out various ideas from the audience, things of
such as, it's under arm, it's its feet, it's uh,
it's body odor, it's it's locker funk, it's and then
(04:47):
other people are saying it's Lindburger, it's Swiss, it's uh,
you know, it's it's some sort of weird pots, Robert,
what have I just put up to my nose? David
Beckham's feet Apparently this was taking This smell was taken
directly from David Beckham's foot funk and then made into
a chemical form and then brushed under the all these
little cards and then handed out to people attending this
(05:09):
particular panel. Alright, So I mean I read about not
necessarily this that you just put in my nose, but
that his foot has been studied before. I didn't realize
that was quite a specimen. I mean, his molecules are
they're they're just rumbling around my nose right now and
touching your brain. I should really say. Yeah, I have
(05:32):
to say it's a little bit disturbing, especially since I
like cheese. Um, I really do. And that is that
is the weird thing, Like the same smell in a
different context. Um, at least cheese fans would be like, oh,
that smells delightful. There was a an art opening I
was helping at here in town that my wife was organizing,
and there was some cheese on hand, and so Bonnie
(05:54):
was unwrapping it and getting ready on the table, and
I was doing something else, like getting lighting or sound
ready for the event, and I smelled this odor and
I'm like, oh, my goodness, we're about to have this
art event and a mouse has died in the wall.
What are we gonna do? It's like, I don't I
don't know how to get back there and get it,
Like clearly something has died. And then I found it
out that knows this cheese and uh. And and then
later we had some friends that were attending it who
(06:17):
are big freendshophiles and really in cheese. They were like, oh,
this smells great. Can we take it home and devour it?
And we're like, yes, please, yes, please, please take the
dead mouse home because it is is stinking up the space.
So different different circumstances, different ideas about where the smell
is coming from, has a huge impact on whether it
is a good smell or a bad smell. Different cultures, right, um,
(06:38):
and there was a woman on this panel. Cecil told us,
the Norwegian odor artist. Oh, yes, she was awesome. Yeah.
I mean you know, by the way, this is all online,
so you can go to World Science Festival put in
sense s c e n T s s c n
s e uh sense and sensibilities and you can see
some of this stuff. It's great. She is uh. They
(07:01):
call her an udor provocateur, and she's really like a
warrior for smell. In the same way that you hear
a lot of parents arguing that okay, you should not
let a child say that a food is yucky, or
you should not say, oh, this taste bad in front
of a child, Like she takes it even farther than
we should not talk about things stinking or smelling bad.
And I kind of on the same boat when it
comes to cheese, Like when I hear people talk about,
(07:23):
who I'm gonna try a stinky cheese, I'm like, don't
use that word. Use a different word for the thing
that you like. Don't say stinky. Say it's a pungent, pungent,
pungent I like, or fragrant, expressive cheese, but don't say stinky.
And that was one of the things she was talking about.
It's like, we have to, you know, we have to
bring up a new generation that has a more nuanced
way of talking about smell, because for a lot of people,
(07:44):
it's just like, oh, that's a good smell, and that's
a bad smell. And it's a lot more complicated than that. Yeah,
And that's kind of what put her on her whole journey.
She said to herself, can I think beyond the dichotomies
of good and bad sense? And she certainly has plumbed
the subject to like he has broken the other side. Yeah,
she makes me think of the guy um who who
the Kloica machine who who is very interested in feces
(08:07):
and his exploration of this in our relationship to this,
this smell, this, this this material, and she does it
the same way with smell um and really forces you
to think about the topic. Yeah. Yeah, but it's so,
it's very it's very very interesting that she dived into this,
And I wanted to mention a couple of things that
(08:27):
that make that even more intriguing. Um, And that's considering
what's actually happening to your inside your nose when you
are sensing a smell um. Like you said, it's the
only sense with a direct connection to the brain. So
when you breathe chemicals into your nose, you have proteins
that bind to millions of molecules, and these molecules rush
(08:48):
into your nose and they get really cozy with the
nerve endings of your brains. With factory bulb and you
have four hundred receptors trying to suss out the different
smells um. So say you're walking down the street in
New York early on the sunny morning in July, You're
gonna be bombarded with a bunch of different smells. Yes,
it is a city of amazing stinks. For sure. It
is it is um or. You know, the day before
(09:09):
garbage pickup, right, it's it's um or. You go past
a pizza parlor and your your brain is trying to
make sense of all this old factory input. So um,
it's it's very interesting when you think about it that way. UM.
And we think about vision is being really complex, but
when we're talking about vision or something like color blindness,
really you're talking about three primary colors that you're perceiving.
But when you're talking about smells, you're talking about fifteen
(09:33):
thousand identifiable smells that are out there so far. Right,
Like you said, this is a pretty young field, the
field of smells. And as we walk around, we're all
carrying around this database of of smells with us. Um Like,
not only the smells that we recognize in our in
our mind, because I think we've all had that situation
where we're walking down the street and with a different
smell will hit us out of nowhere, and suddenly we're
(09:54):
transported back to our childhood or something, right, and and
sometimes we're not even sure what that odor was. It's
not like, oh, the smell of fresh peaches that it
takes me back. I don't know why. I know you had.
All Italians are talking about peaches, but but I'm thinking
about New York streets. I guess I don't know, but
but more like you like, for me, it's like a
smell will hit me and I it will be an
(10:15):
unclassifiable smell, like I'm not sure what that odor is,
but it takes me back. But but so not only
those the odors of memory, but also just the odors
on our person in our coat. Well. I was actually
thinking about that a lot today because I'm wearing this
vintage velvet jacket and it's one of my mom's curnies.
Actually gave it to me, and it's really sweet, love it,
(10:36):
but it has this Yeah, it's very shiny, and it
has the scent of her perfume on it. It's clean,
but obviously this is something that survived it and so
I feel like I'm wearing the autobiography of someone else
right now, and it's a little disconcerting. Um just to
every once in a while smell this scent. But this
is one of the things that se sell To Lost
the the odor artists really wanted to check out, and
(10:59):
she did the us by analyzing a bunch of coats
from the citizens and uh, I think it was the Montpelier, France. Yeah,
she took their coats and analyzed it. Um. Basically, she
used her her nose to try to figure out the
different profiles of smell. And before anybody scoffed at that,
this is actually, um, this is something that perfumers do
(11:22):
all the time. You can really train your nose to
detect the most minute smell or so this is something
that's real, by the way, and um ce cel Tolass
is like she's a giant in her field, so she's
pretty well respected. And she actually has created sense for
product Um, Calvin Klein and all sorts of other people,
so she knows what she's talking about here. Um. But anyway,
(11:46):
she has also just another little interesting fact about her.
She has a smell archive preserved in seven thousand, six
hundred and thirty air tight jars which feature dirty fabric,
chunks of fried fish or dried fish, rotten bananas, a
hundred and fifty variations on dog poo, and her favorite
(12:06):
aroma that of her thirteen year old daughter, which I
thought was really cool. So anyway, this this expert on
odor takes these coats and analyzes them and what does
she find, Well that there's a complex bouquet going on there.
Right in the term that bouquet, there's some top notes
and there are some bottom notes for sure. Yeah, like
there's a certain amount of like fecal odor. Yeah, yeah,
(12:27):
there was. There was one product coat that was analyzed
and had two percent dog feces, five percent soy sauce,
six percent gasoline smell, nine percent Jill Sander after shave.
By the way, this aftershave was not the after shave
of her husband. It was of someone else. Um ten
percent codfish, twelve percent channel number five, which is the
(12:50):
scent she wore, and twenty six percent tobacco sweat. Wow,
where is the cod fish coming from? I mean, she
must have just had a little codfish for for lunch
before she gave her codo her or they had one
of those freak days where like rained cod. Yes, yeah,
that was probably one of those days. Ye frogs the
day before than cod. But yeah, all this stuff is
in our clothes and we're walking around and we think
(13:11):
that we're so clean, especially here, you know, in the
United States, where we're obsessed with sanitizing ourselves and covering up. Well, yeah,
because I'm clean is an interesting topic just in and
of itself, because we over time have taken idea of
hygiene and the idea of spiritual purity and and intertwined
the two to the point where in many cultures there's
just no pulling them apart again, right right, So, I
(13:34):
mean it's just and she will say, uh, this artist
that the West is way too obsessed with sanitizing and
we should get a little bit more comfortable with the
different smells that we have, like the smell of fear,
which we will talk about right after this. This podcast
is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow
(13:55):
and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is
the spark which drives innovation. Join us a curiosity dot
com and explore the answers to life's questions. So the
smell of fear and this this really this boils down
to to some of the you know, a lot of
(14:16):
what we can discuss about the evolution of our sense
of smell in where a place. Because if you can
smell fear, and you hear that a lot, it's like,
don't mess with that guy. He can smell fear. Don't
be weird around this dog. It can smell fear. The
idea that that we're emitting some sort of odor, be
that just a some be it just sort of a
body funk or an actual pheromone that says, I am afraid, right,
(14:36):
I am on edge and a little terrified. Uh. It's
it's a fascinating concept because you would not want to
emit that odor. You would want to admit the I'm
pretty awesome and could beat up a dog kind of right,
right right, Because again here we have with these molecules
being sucked up by our noses, and we are detecting
all of this on a very subtle level, which which
(14:57):
again this the odor artist is um using this to
try to explore, you know, all these different happenstances of
our humanity, like fear. So cecil to lost the artists
we were talking about, she also went after this whole
fear smell thing, and she ended up this is two
thousand six. Shed analyzed all these different examples of men
(15:20):
in a state of fear. These these were men, by
the way, who had chronic states of fear. Right, It
wasn't just like every once a while they were scared,
but for various reasons. They were under dress. Yeah, you know,
maybe they were a veteran or something, and they were
able to, you know, summon this sphere for the experiment,
and they took samples from their their under arms. And
in this in two thousand six, Cecil covered the walls
(15:42):
of an M. I. T. Gallery with and I mean
officially not you know, she didn't go in there, just
do it after the lights were out. She had she
had an exhibit. Yeah, imagine like basically imagine walking into
an exhibit hall and it looks like all the paintings
are gone and you're like, oh, I'm kind of bummed out.
I came here for an art show. And then you
is no, instead of going up and looking at a painting,
(16:03):
you're going up to that blank canvas and you're sniffing.
That's right, because this wall is a metaphor for the skin, right,
And she's basically she's chemically reproduced the molecules from the
sweat of these men that she studied who were suffering fear.
And and you're going up and you're getting to smell
different variations on that odor. And she she mentioned that
there was one individual who had who had been in
(16:25):
the war and uh, and he was smelling like an
Asian um fear odor and the dye was like brought
to tears because he was like, this really takes me
back to this guy who during the war. Is that amazing?
It is amazing? Yeah, yeah, um. And and how she
did this as pretty interesting too. She used micro encapsulation
technology to produce a gloss paint that releases its scent
(16:46):
when gently touched. Scratch and sniff, yeah, scratch and stiff
wall of fear basically, so you have these nine different
smells of fear, you know, from these nine different men
and uh, and all of these guys, like you said
that they collected their sweat during um when they were
under duress. And one of them actually was a guy
who engaged in s and M and so he collected
(17:08):
his perspiration when he visited sex clubs. So he's he's
he has a fearful odor emitting from this upright, because
I mean that's part of his um. I mean, yes,
he was aroused, but it's he has to experience fear
in order to be aroused. So they were collecting that.
So again that's what we're talking about, like very different situations,
but all of them fear based. Yeah, and so can
(17:31):
you imagine you're just kind of scratching and sniffing around
this wall and you're getting these different profiles of smell,
and like you said, the guy that that perceived his
friend in this one smell who wasn't obviously his friend
is pretty amazing. Yeah, it kind of boils down to
two to some of the stuff we've talked about about
how their stuff going on in our brain, we're not
conscious off like a lot of stuff under the surface
(17:52):
of the waves of human cognition, and and certainly the
processing of smells is just another one of those things. Always.
I was just thinking about that too, like how we
arrive at an idea and we keep thinking we have
these aha moments, when in fact we talked about this before,
like do we actually have free will? But it's all
being Our perception is being colored all the time, and
these ah ha moments rise to the surface after they've
(18:15):
been vetted um in so many different subconscious ways, like
you said, like smells. So again, like we discussed the
towards the top of the podcast, funky Smell, if we
pair that with a picture of a foot, were repulsed
pair it with a picture of you know, a fancy
um hard or soft cheese, and we're more likely to salivate,
right right, scratch us. If a wall, we're scared. Um.
(18:38):
But yeah, I mean it is all in the way
that it's uh, it's packaged. And again you have the
odor artists responsible for making something called human bacteria cheese,
which brings the two together into one product. The fear
in the fear and then the attraction to cheese, and
here it is in one product. Yeah, yeah, I think
(18:59):
it's fascinating. She wanted to know what happens when I
grow an edible substance from my own body, uh bacteria
and then eat it. Yeah yeah, So again she this
fascination with smell that she in bacteria. Um. She decided
that this body bacteria would be the ideal organism uh
(19:19):
to carry a smelly bacterium closely related to human armpits
and feet. She took working samples, She collected them from
friends and family, and then she simulated and coagulated them
into a range of ripe taste sensations like Daisy's armpit,
Philosopher's toe, Chris Christina's hand, and Sile's foot. Well, if
(19:41):
I had to go for one hour ago for Philosopher's toe. Yeah,
I know that sounds like it could be uh nutty,
mild with a surprising end. Yeah, and there's a great
foot in mouth kind of metaphor going oh yeah, yes, yes,
nice nice um. But and you know you had we
talked about David Beckham's foot before, and it turns out
that I don't think she actually grew any cheese from
(20:02):
his samples, but she could, that's the the amusing thing.
She could, she absolutely could. But it turns out that
his particular odor has the chemical construction most similar to
a Belgian Limburger cheese. So there, So if you want
to partake in in our reaction to David Beckham's foot,
(20:25):
just go find a nice lumburger and give it a whiff.
There you go, There you go. That's that's what we
were smelling. But it really is an interesting idea that,
you know, if you get very hard up for a
food source, you could actually sort of grow your own
cheese from your body. Right. Well, I met a hippie
girl once who had made mead like the alcoholic beverage
that the old ale like the old Ale a medieval
(20:47):
stuff and she had used like under her own under
armed funk too to like kick started. So well that
is artists and crafted mead right there. I mean I
can't argue against that. I did not try it, but um,
it existed, so I'm sure it probably was delicious. Who knows, Yeah,
I guess. I mean it just comes down to the
whole How do we semantically categorized something. How do we
(21:10):
distance something from its source. It's like I did a
blog postal wall back titled U all water has been
pooped in or something of that effect what I titled it.
But basically the argument is, at some point in the
fact pass any water that we drink has been foul
like it is, it is probably fallen out of a
dinosaur's cloak at some point in the path. Well yeah, yeah,
and and but we don't really think about that because
(21:31):
it's it's transferred through nature, it's gone down a stream,
and then here it is. It's so it's fresh water. Well,
companies and government will say to Okay, yeah, they're not
gonna call it sewer treated water, but they're gonna say, ah,
it was um, you know, it was filtered through this
underground compartment in which you know, and then charcoal blah
blah blah. So again there's the semantic distancing and this
idea of well, it may have had urine in at
(21:54):
one point, but by the time it reached you know,
a mile out this way, it's fresh and pure, like
you know, Rocky Mountain spring. Yeah. I mean you don't
want to think about the fact when you go to
a restaurant there maybe human skin cell flakes on your food.
There are for sure, Yeah, I mean just it's just
gonna happen. But but yeah, it's like we we it's like,
how do we interpret this smell? How do we interpret
the source of something that is entering our lives or
(22:16):
our bodies? Yeah, and I would be interested to know, like, Okay,
given all this information about smell, has has this changed
your perception at all about smell the things that that
you detect? Um? You know it? Do you think it's
as mood altering? Is it as some people say it is? Well?
I think we all have our favorite since you know
that really kick starts like you were talking about, like
(22:36):
coffee is an interesting one. Like there's a local coffee
shop that I go to a lot to write, um
called Joe's in case anyone wants to seek it out
in Atlanta, I just don't bother me while I'm there,
because I'm working. He's the guy with a blue shirt
that says boards of Canada on it. Okay, yeah, yeah,
I wear this every day. But I'll leave there smelling
(22:58):
like coffee. And while i'm they're like the small coffee
is comforting. Occasionally they'll also be like a bomb that
walks in it, like reeks of right guard for some reason.
But but like sanitizing. Yeah, it's better than what lays beneath, right,
but but any right, like, the smell of coffee for
me is very comforting. It's like a very like oh
it's it's coffee time. It's it's like a thought like
personal creativity kind of a scent for me. But for
(23:20):
you it's it's not a pleasant one, right, No, Because
I used to smoke, and so I've spent all our
time um in coffee houses. Uh, not smoking clothes cigarettes,
don't worry that wasn't doing that, but writing and smoking
h And so every time I come home from a
coffee shop and I smell that that coffee smell, I
I immediately think of like headache, like past Um, I
(23:43):
mean nothing like terribly nefarious, just just something that I
don't enjoy doing anymore, and I don't enjoy smelling. There
you go. I mean it's tied to memories, It's tied
to past experiences and expectations. So yeah, it's the proost effect, right.
I can't help but but have some sort of memory,
especially since that's what it stimulates. I mean, smells stimula,
it's communication memory. Um, I'll part to your bringing that
(24:04):
are connected to all right, Well, well there you go,
sort of an intro to how mind blowing smell can be.
And in a future podcast episode, we're going to talk
about the future of smell and how technology can and
will enable us to manipulate this amazing Can we call
it the fifth sense? I don't know. I don't know
where it ranks in the numbers. I guess it depends
(24:26):
on how they execute it. I'm calling it the fifth cent.
How we can manipulate the fifth cent and uh and
and use it to enhance products, which I think is
gonna be an exciting episode. But in the meantime, let
us know what you think about the smells in your life,
in this realm of scent that surrounds you like, like what,
how does a favorite smell factor into your life? How
(24:47):
does a least favorite smell? And where do you stand
on the whole cheese foot situation. You can let us
know by dropping by Facebook or Twitter. We are blow
the mind on both of those, and certainly especially on
the Facebook is it's just a great place to interact
with us, ask us questions, share things with other listeners. Uh,
I really enjoyed. Yeah, we've had some great post front
(25:08):
people out there. Um. So, Also, you can take a
stab at creating a profile from your own jacket scent
profile and you can send us what you think that
is composed of uh, and you can email us at
below the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be
(25:30):
sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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