How to master your sense of smell - Alexandra Horowitz
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-master-your-sense-of-smell-alexandra-horowitz Some perfumers can distinguish individual odors in a fragrance made of hundreds of scents;...
==========
Perfumers can learn to distinguish individual odors in a fragrance made of hundreds of scents. Tea experts have been known to sniff out not just the location where a tea was from, but the season of harvest and whether it was planted by a plum tree. And the New York City Transit Authority once had an employee responsible only for sniffing out gas leaks in the subway system. Can just anyone learn to smell with the sensitivity of those experts? For most of us, what we smell is largely involuntary, whether it's garbage behind a restaurant, the shampoo of the woman leaving an elevator as you enter, or a bakery's fresh-made bread. With a few million olfactory receptors in our noses, we clearly don't lack the ability to smell well. We just might no...
==========
Perfumers can learn to distinguish individual odors in a fragrance made of hundreds of scents. Tea experts have been known to sniff out not just the location where a tea was from, but the season of harvest and whether it was planted by a plum tree. And the New York City Transit Authority once had an employee responsible only for sniffing out gas leaks in the subway system. Can just anyone learn to smell with the sensitivity of those experts? For most of us, what we smell is largely involuntary, whether it's garbage behind a restaurant, the shampoo of the woman leaving an elevator as you enter, or a bakery's fresh-made bread. With a few million olfactory receptors in our noses, we clearly don't lack the ability to smell well. We just might no...
