🧵 Olfactory science
Anonymous at Wed, 19 Jun 2024 11:01:35 UTC No. 16242450
>“Did you ever try to measure a smell?” Alexander Graham Bell once asked an audience of graduands at a high school in Washington DC.
>He then quizzed the probably confused class of 1914 as to whether they could tell when one scent was twice the strength of another, or measure the difference between two distinct odours. Eventually, though, he came to the point: “Until you can measure their likenesses and difference, you can have no science of odour,” Bell said. “If you are ambitious to find a new science, measure a smell.”
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-servic
So how come there is little attention and work has occurred in olfaction versus other fields since smell is an important sense of the body.
Anonymous at Wed, 19 Jun 2024 17:09:15 UTC No. 16242801
>>16242450
I know there's a company that has an electronic nose that uses real smell receptors from humans to measure smell. Forget which one it was though.
Anonymous at Wed, 19 Jun 2024 18:17:01 UTC No. 16242903
>>16242801
Why is it hard to measure smell?
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:46:38 UTC No. 16243414
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:24:33 UTC No. 16243451
>>16243414
now what
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:44:12 UTC No. 16243461
>>16242903
Because chemFETs are garbage and we don't really have a good way to interface tissues with electronics. We're getting better though. I would not be surprised to see useful "electronic noses" in 10-15 years.
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 07:02:36 UTC No. 16243746
>>16242903
No idea. Smell is particles in the air. You can measure how many ppm it takes for a smell to be noticeable by the average person. Just let more people try it to get a reasonable average.
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 15:50:07 UTC No. 16244211
>>16242450
I can not only measure the smell, I can imagine the smell.
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:34:19 UTC No. 16244262
>>16242903
You would think it's number of stinky particles hitting whatever membrane, but it's probably considered a consciousness problem. Is your red my red? Do your wife's armpits smell bad to you while smelling delicious to me? To what degree? I don't think you could reliably measure how a smell is interpreted.
Anonymous at Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:36:37 UTC No. 16244265
>>16242450
Test