QUIRKY FACTS ON SMELL
The random and obscure we couldn’t resist sharing.
Let us know if you have anything you would like to share.
Baby talk
We are influenced by scent before we are born. It's thought some smell preferences are inherited. Babies also learn about smell in their mother's womb, tasting amniotic fluid.
What does love smell like?
If you’re a polar bear, it turns out love smells like feet. Polar bears leave footprints in the snow impregnated with their scent and these little frozen clues left across miles of ice are enough for polar bears to find each other. This could be crucial for polar bears who are usually solitary creatures, only mating at certain times of the year.
The sense of smell in numbers
10,000 used to be the estimate given for how many ‘different’ odours a human could perceive. Recently, there was a new estimate, at least a trillion! This number was arrived at by testing the capability of humans to select the odd one out in a triangle sniff tests, where two samples are the same and one is slightly different. From these results, it was extrapolated that we can discriminate between at least a trillion smells, that’s a million million smells!
Just for fun...
Meet Nasa's 'Chief Sniffer' Who Smells Everything Before It Goes Into Space
Ancient smells reveal secrets of Egyptian tomb
How African elephants’ amazing sense of smell could save lives
How the travel industry uses your sense of smell to enhance your holiday
Viruses make us 'catnip' for mosquitos
You're more likely to become friends with someone who smells like you
Where You Live Can Determine What Smells Good to You