Human Sense of Smell Underestimated

Benjamin Long writes to note a study, by a team of neuroscientists and engineers, that demonstrated that humans can follow a scent trail — an ability that most had assumed only animals possessed. Furthermore, the study demonstrated for the first time that humans make use of differential information from the two nostrils. The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail. Here is the abstract of the paper in Nature Neuroscience. From the article: "The humans, however, still sniffed much more slowly than dogs, which may partially account for canines' greater efficiency at scent tracking. [A commentator] says that despite their relatively sluggish speed, the fact that subjects improved with training is noteworthy. 'I think that shows the effect of our distinctively different behavior in actually using this sense,' he says. 'The dog [has] been doing this its whole life, and humans [were] just asked to plunge in the first time they've ever done it.'"

Student Dignity

[hadhad69]

The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail. This just proves students will do anything for $10

Worst. Smell. Ever.

[AssCork]

I was standing behind the server racks and I thought I could sqeeze off a silent fart without anyone noticing. Sadly the offending trouser bomb got caught up in the fans of a 4U Server. The cheese-scented ass gas was recirculated through every fan in the room evenly distributing its greasy essence all over the datacenter. None of my fellow technicians will speak to me since this awful and embarrassing emission.

No surprises

[edwardpickman]

The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail.

Most women can follow a chocolate scented trail, oddly enough the scent trail left by diamonds and currency works just as well. On the flip side most men are able to scent track women so I guess there's balance in nature.

Re:Student Dignity

[Timesprout]

This just proves students will do anything for $10

Na, they had to pay them $1000 to sniff out the RMS scented trail.

Re:hey...

[Anonymous Coward]

They eventually found the 'chocolate' left behind by the dog.

On the Internet...

[russotto]

...no one knows you're a dog. Until you start bragging about your scent-tracking superiority, then you've given away the game.

Re:Student Dignity

[Hijacked Public]

I also like that they trained them. For gun dogs this usually involves a shock collar and yelling things like "I said Whoa dammit".

I hope it went down like that with these kids too.

Re:Not news to me

[heauxmeaux]

I found a beak in my 25 piece value-lunch-tub-bucket-meal.

Maradona's nose

[extern_void]

Maradona has proved it many times some years ago keeping track of some white dust...

Easy

[MyLongNickName]

How do you think I find my way to the computer science classroom?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:My Dog Has No Nose!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

A guy is on an elevator alone.
A beautiful girl gets on.
He says "Hey, can I smell your pussy?"
She says "NO!".
He says "Oh, must be your breath."

Wait a minute.

[Jethro]

The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail.

Sure... "researchers".

This is one of those weird Japanese game shows!

Re:Student Dignity

[russ1337]

>>> "The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail"

I'm not proud of it, but I've dated girls that'd crawl through grass on the scent of chocolate.

Re:Student Dignity

[Rob T Firefly]

So then it'd be more correct to say "students will do anything for course credit."

Re:Duh?

[PingSpike]

Your antecdote only further proves that you are in fact, a werewolf. And of course you didn't use your hound dog. You tore that poor thing apart during the last full moon.

Fish

[Anonymous Coward]

On the flip side most men are able to scent track women so I guess there's balance in nature.

Men can also scent track fish.... suppose those two scent tracking skills are related?

Re:Student Dignity

[springbox]

Uh, you both missed the point. It should be "This just proves students will do anything for chocolate "

Re:Worst. Smell. Ever.

[Jearil]

I'm going to have to believe your story purely based on your user name.

Re:A dog is a million times better

[corbettw]

There are already highly trained human noses already out there

For example, experienced sommeliers and cheesemongers probably have even more fined tuned senses of smell (at least within their areas of expertise) than most pet dogs. Not blood hounds, mind you, but especially sight hounds and working dogs. Being able to identify ten or twelve different aromas and tastes within one glass of wine is a distinct skill, and I doubt many dogs can do it.

At least, I know mine can't. But then, he can be a mean drunk, so maybe that's the real problem.

Re:Student Dignity

[kinglink]

If this was anywhere else I'd say beer could have been involved.

Seeing as this was college, I'd say beer was DEFINATLY involved.

Re:sense of smell first to develope

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

OK, I'm going to have to say some disgusting stuff in the service of science.

There's an easy experiment to demonstrate that humans have the ability to distinguish smells very finely. The point is, humans (at least the ones I know) don't mind the smell of their own farts, but can't stand the smell of others. This means that humans have the ability to distinguish between their own farts and the farts of everyone else. Now there are three obvious classes of mechanism for this:

(1) Humans can distinguish between their own farts and every else's - ie. they can partition fart smells into self and non-self

OR

(2) Humans can distinguish between everyone's farts.

OR

(3) Various shades in between.

Now consider hypothesis (1). This is pretty preposterous. Chemical sensors in our nose that can only distinguish fart smells into two classes, self and non-self, would be ridiculously specialised. So we're left with (2) or (3).

Now consider (3). To the extent that you can't distinguish self from non-self, there are people's whose farts you can't distinguish from your own. In other words, (3) implies there are other people whose farts you don't mind. This is simply too disgusting to contemplate and no benevolent deity could have created a universe like this.

So we are led to conclusion (2).

Anyway, I think more experiments are needed. I think this is an example of low hanging fruit if someone is seeking an Ig Nobel prize.

Re:Student Dignity

[SeaFox]

"The researchers blindfolded college students who crawled through grass to sniff out a chocolate-scented trail."
This just proves students will do anything for $10

Soon to appear on YouTube!

Re:Student Dignity

[Trillan]

True, but after following the scent of a chocolate bar, I'd want that chocolate bar right now, darnit. :)

obl. Simpsons reference

[Johnny5000]

The ten dollars you would have earned could be exchanged for many chocolate bars.

Explain how?

Re:Student Dignity

[LilGuy]

You should be plenty proud that you've dated girls and are able to post about it on slashdot. You're a hero and an inspiration to so many here!

Re:obl. Simpsons reference

[suggsjc]

We have this amazing thing called currency. That is what the $10 is. It can be used to purchase goods and services. In this case the good/services would be the multiple chocolate bars.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you need a diagram.

Re:Student Dignity

[Wyrmy]

Actually it was only $707, after conversion.

Re:Student Dignity

[russ1337]

>>> You should be plenty proud that you've dated girls and are able to post about it on slashdot. You're a hero and an inspiration to so many here!

Oh, did I say dated? To be accurate, I followed them.