Talk:Sense of smell/Archive 1

Listening to the radio
I'm listening to the radio and there is a scientist on who reakons females smell about 5x better than boys. Anyone know anything about this? They just mentioned this site The bellman 14:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Diminished ability to differentiate smells with exposure
What is the appropriate descriptive term, or series of words that identifies one's loss of the capacity to "recognize" smells or fragrances with the passage of time in contuous exposure. An example might be useful.

Imagine arriving at a social gathering and immediately being impressed with the very noticeable fragrance represented by the perfume of a female participant in that gathering. However, as time passes you note that while the fragrance is still available, since the woman wearing it is still in the room, it does not dominate your senses. You can recall it into prominence but if you don't do that, it simply does not have the compelling impact that it did when you entered the room.

What is that loss of awareness called?

Sign your name: Dr. Ronald G. Fountain

What you are referring to is called "habituation". In mice, habituation to an odor is observed on a time scale of many minutes, and the neural mechanism underlying this loss of sensitivity seems to be due to synaptic mechanisms in the olfactory cortex (see work published by Don Wilson if you interested in details). Sensory adaptation also occurs in the olfactory receptor neurons that decrease their sensitivity to odor over a scale of seconds to minutes (similar to light and dark adaptation that occurs in the retina - like when adapting to a dark movie theater). This is probably a less likely explanation for what you percieve since it occurs typically on a smaller time scale. Mattv 20:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Zwademaker Conjugates?
I had never heard of Zwaademaker conjugates, so I looked the term on Google and found only a few hits (some from an Annals of Improbable Research article), all referring to one researcher, Ron Blue, who had published an article in an extremely obscure journal, "The Noetic Journal." Hoping to find some more reputable information, I did a PubMed search for "Zwaademaker" or "Zwaadermaker" and found no hits. So, I'm removing the section on these compounds in the article until I see more convincing documentation. Sayeth 18:09, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

try 'Zwaardemaker'. --Marcello74 12:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

# of senses
If we have 5, or 9, or 23 senses depending on who you ask and their definition, why are not all 23 listed? I think it might be useful to have the senses organized in models. ie. the traditional 5 sense model, and list them. then the updated 9-sense model, and list them. then the fancy 23 sense model and list them. After that, describe them all. Anyone up for it?? ITs certainly not helpful to have a statement that there may be as many as 23 senses in humans, but only see 9 of them listed. Mike.lifeguard 03:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Image
the image isn't displaying properly, and I don't know how to fix it :( Mike.lifeguard 01:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems to be working fine. Veracious Rey    talk  •  contribs  •  review me   20:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

First paragraph
The opening paragraph of this article is out of place. There are several different points, only loosely connected, and not all relevant to the topic "How olfaction works." I would suggest beginning the article with the 2nd paragraph, which immediately and specifically addresses the topic —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.173.53.6 (talk) 00:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Dogs
I'm not necessarily disputing the statement that "Bloodhounds, which have the keenest sense of smell of any dogs, have noses ten to a hundred million times more sensitive than a human's.", but it does seem to be a fairly extraordinary claim that should be supported by an appropriate citation. Far Canal (talk) 06:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

odour in the news
should link to odour pollution today just as real as any other pollution. There is a news blog about odours odours effect on the environment and humans

The 3rd paragraph of this page starts with ' Each olfactory receptor neuron expresses only one functional odor receptor.'

This is only true in mammals, and can be verified in

Pinel, John P.J. (2006) Biopsychology. Pearson Education Inc. ISBN 0-205-42651-4

page 178 - In mammals, each olfactory receptor cell contains one type of receptor protein molecule.

Emalsa (talk) 05:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Leujohn  ( talk ) 10:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Olfactory vs. Nufactory
Perhaps these should be contrasted, even a brief mention of the crucial differences would suffice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.195.144.32 (talk) 02:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

resource here?

 * The Scent of Your Thoughts; Although we are usually unaware of it, we communicate through chemical signals just as much as birds and bees do by Deborah Blum in October 10, 2011 issue of Scientific American.  97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:11, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

And another * The Hedonic Nose: Pleasure May Organize Your Sense of Smell; The nose really might "know" good from bad, even before the brain does by Sarah Fecht in September 26, 2011 issue of Scientific American. 97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Loss of smell
I'd love to see some discussion of the causes of the loss, or permanent reduction of the sense of smell. Why do people lose the ability smell? How do they get it back? Are there any scenarios that include a tinnitus-like cricket sound? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.225.230.210 (talk) 15:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This article links to anosmia, which discusses a lot of that -- might be reasonable to summarize it here though. I'm not aware of any link between anosmia and tinnitus. Looie496 (talk) 18:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Wish list

 * I wish this entry included information on the sensitivity of human smell. I realize this is not a simple question, but complicated material is not rare in Wikipedia.


 * Publunch would like to know a little bit about artificial olfaction, i.e. robots that can smell. Any good leads?  Thanks --Publunch 16:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Please see section "odour in the news" at the end of this talk page. Mayurvg (talk) 18:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I wish this entry would include information on smell desensitization. This came up in the CSB investigation of the "Slim Jim" factory explosion. It is also a common everyday occurrence, e.g., your favorite restaurant smells like food when you first walk in, but later you are unaware of the smell.Firebird (talk) 14:26, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The section "Main olfactory system" states "The proportion of olfactory epithelium compared to respiratory epithelium (not innervated) gives an indication of the animal's olfactory sensitivity." The next sentence gives the (absolute) areas of the olfactory epithelium in humans and dogs, but does not tell the respective proportions relative to total respiratory epithelium. Adding this information would complete the statement nicely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.233.155.47 (talk) 09:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Olfactics <> Olfaction?
Olfactics redirects to this article but I suspect that may be an error. Googling Olfactics results in a definition that makes it a *study* of the sense of smell, rather than olfaction (the sense of smell), in the same vein as Kinesics and Oculesics. AncientBrit (talk) 20:10, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

WHY A SUBSTANCE SMELL
-something is smelling means some thing is continously emitting from the substance. -smell is due to the emission of odorant from the substance. -when the ododrant comes in contact with the olfactory membrane we can smell. -odorant have certain chamical compocition take bananaas as example.. the chamical composition of banana bears a smal chamical strecture which is responcible for smell of banana .the smell molecule is bonded weakly with the banana molecule which can break in the normal room tempreture so it smell. - when the banana is preserved in the refregaretor the smell becomems less because the bond can't break in such alow tempreture -odorant have a small strecture so it can blow even in the slow current of air — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asit panigrahy (talk • contribs) 07:56, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

lateral inhibition in olfaction?
In the Receptor section comparing olfaction and vision there is the statement "There are also considerable similarities in the immediate processing of stimuli by lateral inhibition" Can someone give a reference for this? I find it a bit surprising because my understanding is that lateral inhibition normally sharpens spatial discontinuities in mapped senses (vision, touch etc), which isn't normally the way olfaction is regarded. Wjheitler (talk) 19:37, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You could look at the Olfactory Bulb chapter in Shepherd's Synaptic Organization of the Brain (any version). Anatomically there is very extensive lateral inhibition mediated by granule cells.  I believe the general concept is that this sharpens the signal by suppressing activity in glomeruli that only receive weak input. Looie496 (talk) 20:44, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

History of olfaction
I was thinking it would be beneficial to write a history of olfaction and place it at the end of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ape222 (talk • contribs) 23:20, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Ozone
Does anyone know the mechanism of how we smell ozone? JWSchmidt 05:52, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC) I am very curious about this question, too. I have never seen it addressed. DON'T TRY, does atomic hydrogen have a similar smell? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Foxpoet (talk • contribs) 20:31, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Sense of smell listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Sense of smell. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 04:00, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Smell (sense) listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Smell (sense). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 04:01, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Smell receptors listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Smell receptors. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 04:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Olfactory sense listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Olfactory sense. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 04:04, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Rename to 'sense of smell'?
Hi everyone! Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should rename the article to 'Sense of smell', while keeping 'olfaction' as a bolded term in the first sentence, and a redirect of course. While olfaction may be the technical term, it is not commonly used outside of academia, and may not even be known by native English speakers. The article should be retitled to the plain language and equivalent term 'Sense of smell'. What do you think? Ganesha811 (talk) 11:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Any thoughts on this? If there is no objection I will be WP:BOLD and move the article myself in a couple of days. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:53, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Given the lack of response, I will now move the article and then make appropriate modifications to the lead. Ganesha811 (talk) 01:48, 11 May 2021 (UTC)