The Power of Scent

SNIFF AND SWIM

For years scientists have wondered how exactly sperm cells find an egg to enable conception. It turns out that sperm cells smell the aroma of the ovaries and egg cells and then begin their mad swim toward them. It is a process now referred to as attraction chemotaxis. Interestingly it turns out that as good as mice are at smelling cheese in a maze and finding it, experiments in scent dilution show that mice sperm are even better at finding mice eggs than are adult mice at finding cheese.

 

 

SNIFF AND SUCK

The sense of smell is the first of our senses to develop. Even before we are born, our sense of smell is fully formed and functioning. Within a couple minutes of birth, newborn infants follow the breast odors emanating from their mother's nipple/areola region causing a head turning of the baby for the nipple and helps guide the baby to successful sucking for milk. Shortly thereafter newborns can easily recognize their own mother's unique odor signature which builds mother-infant attachment.

 

THE FINE SMELL 

OF OLD AGE

Age smells better in things other than cheese. In most of the animal kingdom, females prefer the smell of older males. While science has yet (I stress the word yet) to definitively identify the role of sexual attraction pheromones in the world of humans they are the most essential aspect to most all mammal mating.

 

BOOK 'EM, DANO

Forget fingerprints, criminals will soon be identified by the scent that they leave behind. New crime scene analysis techniques are proving that human scent can remain at the scene of a crime for days or longer and that the unique chemical signature of an individual’s smell is far more complex and identifying than is their fingerprint.

 

WHAT THE TSA "NOSE" 

We are only a step or two away from a person’s passport being imprinted with their individual, unique smell. Science has proven that a person’s individual scent is a more complex and accurate identifier than is their fingerprint or retinal pattern. Trials are underway now mapping passports with scent and providing TSA officials with training on scent detection equipment.

 

A NEW NOSE MONTHLY

Your scent cells are renewed every 28 days. So, you get a new nose every month.

SMELL IS SMART AND SENSITIVE  

Smell is the most sensitive of the senses. People can remember smells with 65% accuracy after a year, while visual recall is about 50% after three months.

 

WOMEN SMELL BETTER 

 

A woman’s sense of smell is much stronger than a mans. It is heightened even more in the first half of the menstrual cycle and reaches its peak when she is most fertile.

 

 

 

 

 

SMELL IS EVERYWHERE

 

Historically, scientists believed quite logically that all our odor receptors were located in the nose and olfactory system, the same was our vision receptors are found in the eye and visual systems. Scientists around the world are now finding that odor receptors are not confined to the nose, they are actually located all throughout the body.