10 Things You May Not Know About Smell

10 Things You May Not Know About Smell

Here are 10 things you may not know about smell.

Smell, though often underrated, is an incredibly powerful sense. It can evoke memories, alert us to dangers, and even allows us to enjoy food more. It’s a vital one for non-human creatures as well.

Here are 10 things you may not know about the important faculty.

Number 10. It’s been with you the longest. When babies come out of the womb, they can’t hear or see all that well, but their sense of smell is good to go. In fact, it’s the first sense that humans develop.

Number 9. Women smell better. That’s both as a general assessment of the aromas one gives off and their ability to take them in. It’s possible that men are more likely to have an unpleasant odor about them because they can’t smell themselves as well.

Number 8. Younger people are more scent adventurous. Up until the age of 4, humans aren’t as discerning about what they’re willing to take a whiff of. To babies and toddlers, all of the world’s scents are equally intriguing. 

Number 7. Our noses can pinpoint smells in space. People fortunate enough to have spent time on the moon report that it smells like spent gunpowder. Don’t worry – nobody’s taken their helmet off while walking around on its surface. That observation was made by sniffing space suits that had been out there.

Number 6. The sense can alert one to possible imminent death. Researchers have found that a diminished ability to smell is an indication that one’s time may be short. They were able to make the correlation by testing people’s smelling abilities then checking on the subjects 5 years later.

Number 5. Dreams can be aromatic. There are some people who report encountering a variety of scents while they slumber. It’s particularly common among people whose olfactory abilities are highly developed. 

Number 4. Cockroaches stay sharp by grooming. Apparently, almost obsessively. They pass their antennae and legs through their mouths to scrape away environmental buildup. Keeping clean gives them a better ability to sniff out food. 

Number 3. Elephants have super smelling abilities. Their sniffers are 5 times more powerful than those of humans, and twice as keen as the ones belonging to dogs. 

Number 2. Humans can distinguish a trillion different scents. For a long time it was believed that the number capped at 10 thousand, but that was just a guess. Research revealed that our olfactory systems are way more powerful than we think. 

Number 1. The smell of newborn babies is like a drug. Seriously. The aroma triggers the brain’s reward center much in the same way that addictive substances do. Mothers are particularly sensitive to the intoxicating scent of babies, whether the child is theirs or not.

What do you find most interesting about smell?