[TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

Fri Mar 14 07:19:00 EST 2008

The human nose can be trained to very high levels of discrimination. 
Examples of such are  chefs, coffee roasters, people that mix and developed 
perfumes.  There are probably many other jobs where the human nose is 
trained to detect minute variations in odor.  The capability is there, it 
just needs to be developed through use and training.

D-ski
Westminster, MD
"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob Fertner" <rfertner at cox.net>
To: "'Sponsored by ABANA'" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 7:59 AM
Subject: RE: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

I got this off of Healthline .com:
Because of their humble abilities of olfaction, humans are called
microsmatic, rather than macrosmatic. Still, the human nose is capable of
detecting over 10,000 different odors, some in the range of parts per
trillion of air; and many researchers suspect that smell plays a greater
role in human behavior and biology than has been previously thought. For
instance, research has shown that human mothers can smell the difference
between a vest worn by their baby and one worn by another baby only days
after the child's birth.

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Rob Fertner
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 6:29 AM
To: 'Sponsored by ABANA'
Subject: RE: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

The average human being is able to recognize approximately 10,000 different
odors: Our sense of smell is so powerful that when you smell skunk, you are
smelling 0.000,000,000,000,071 of an ounce of scent.
It is important to understand that throughout every day and night of our
lives we smell a wide variety of odors without being aware of them at all:
We go about our activities, breathing in and out, as an infinite number of
chemical molecules interact subliminally with our odor receptors. Only when
an odor irritates or pleases us or acts as a sudden reminder of the past do
we pause to take notice.
People recall smells with a 65% accuracy after a year, while the visual
recall of photos sinks to about 50% after only three months: Our odor
memories frequently have strong emotional qualities and are associated with
the good or bad experiences in which they occurred. Olfaction is handled by
the same part of the brain (the limbic system) that handles memories and
emotions. Therefore, we often find that we can immediately recognize and
respond to smells from childhood such as the smell of clean sheets, cookies
baking in the oven, the smell of new books or a musty room in Grandma's
house. Very often we cannot put a name to these odors yet they have a strong
emotive association even if they cannot be specifically identified.

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Peter Hirst
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 11:35 PM
To: mspencer at tallships.ca; Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

Waaaall, I'm no Croecopia, but I'll bet itd take a lot more molecules than
an average EVA collects from space, diluted by the re-press air and then by
the ambient air of the cabin, to register on the human olfactory receptors
of a NSA scientist who reasons that since the smell came off the suit. I
must have come from space rather than the airlock that the suit just passed
through.

Keziah
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Spencer" <mspencer at tallships.ca>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 12:01 AM
Subject: [TheForge][OT] Re: The Smell of Space - sorta OT

>
>> Since the 'smell' is really molecules of something it leaves me
>> wondering just how packed the vacuum of space is with molecules of
>> things.
>
> I once sat in at a small seminar of heavyweight academics (how & why
> is another story) at which someone remarked that it took a mere dozen
> molecules of the female Coecropia moth's pheromone to trigger a
> response in a male.  Jerry Lettvin, Elder Guru and Demigod of such
> things replied, "Three is sufficient".
>
> I don't know if the human schnozz is as good as that of a moth that's
> evolutionarily tuned to chemical courtship but it might not take very
> many molecules of something unusual to light up our olfactory
> switchboard.
>
> - Mike
>
> -- 
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
>                                                           /V\
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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