7 ms·
Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans (2006)
- ljlolel 3y agoFeynman wrote about this decades ago
- molticrystal 3y agoHe may of told the story in other places, but I remember that it was discussed in the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!. He would act as a bloodhound, smelling books, then having people handle the book without him present, then identifying which book a person handled by smelling their hands. I believe he did it also with playing cards after identifying the differences in the way people's hands smelled.
- kaybe 3y agoTry it, it works really well! But it was the difference between untouched and a handled book. It’s really obvious when you smell closely.
- munchler 3y agoSo "inter-nostril comparison" is like stereo for the nose? Apparently, we can use the slightly different inputs to each nostril to determine the direction from which a smell is coming. Cool!
- Filligree 3y agoIt also seems to be surfaced to the conscious level. At least, I definitely can tell you what direction a smell is coming from -- and it feels like I know that because of a difference between my nostrils. So that part seems... painfully obvious?
- diogenes4 3y agoAll good science is painfully obvious.
- esrauch 3y agoMaybe I'm stereo-smell-blind but I don't feel like I have this power. I can tell some smell directionality by movement / rotating my head.
- rolph 3y agoexhale forcefully, slowly pan your head while inhaling, pay attention to wind direction, know the behaviour of animals you are persuing.
- rolisz 3y agoI don't really feel that, so it's not obvious to me.
- alanbernstein 3y agoIt has never before occured to me that any human might have this ability, so maybe not painfully obvious.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoEven if you've never experienced "knowing" where a smell comes from, the presence of two nostrils is quite the telltale !
- nelsondev 3y agoI’m curious if our tendency to breathe through one nostril at a time relates to this “inter-nostril comparison”
- bmacho 3y agoNeeds "Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans (2006)"
- bmacho 3y agoI'd prefer if titles of HN submissions told me what should I look for. I'd click on a "Humans may be just as capable as dogs at scent-tracking" link, and see if it is justified (no, really, I won't take it as granted just because it is a HN submission title). But I don't know what to do with a "Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans (2006)". I probably won't even click on it, and if I did, I wouldn't find anything interesting.
- loa_in_ 3y agoYou prefer publications to cater to your interests at a given moment, I prefer publications to hint at the whole covered area with the least amount of words but still as precisely as possible. I'm aware that everyone reading this might have their own takeaway from reading the paper, so it's unfair to deprive them of that or obstruct their search for it.
- bmacho 3y agoIn case of scientific publications maybe there are many different "sources", and for searching purposes it is better to have the original title, you are right in that. I don't get what you mean before it, but I don't think I want or can argue about it. I just generally prefer edited submission titles, for example in this submission or in a benchmark result page, or such.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoDoes the paper really say that humans may be as capable as dogs? That doesn’t sound right.
- mouse_8b 3y agoMaybe a little hyperbolic, but I've seen other studies that show humans can differentiate between odors better than dogs. Dogs seem to be great at detecting odors in low concentrations. Once they are detectable by humans, however, it seems we have some pretty good olfactory skills.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoSmelling is more than just being able to detect an odor. You also need to be able to understand what that odor is. The capacity to recognize an odor from a certain volume of smell chemicals being tipped off is actually a distinguishing pattern of multiple sclerosis!
- jwestbury 3y agoBill Bryson talked about this in The Body; the tl;dr is that, yes, with the right scent, humans are as capable as dogs when it comes to tracking something down. The study he cited had humans on all fours, nose to the ground, searching out chocolate which had been moved across a field. The unstated bit of this is that humans are probably less good at scent differentiation, which is another factor in olfactory "capability," but not strictly the same as the ability to track a scent (though you could argue that if you're more likely to follow a subtly wrong scent, you're less capable -- something not captured by the studies which have looked at this, I don't think).
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- markx2 3y agoI have a 7yr Springador / Labradinger. I prefer the latter term. I can - and do - throw a ChuckIt ball across a field. If she does not see the ball bounce and rest she relies totally on scent. She will literally pass by a bright orange/blue ball which is sitting at rest on short green grass or a sprinkling of white snow. She will hunt that ball, nose to the ground until she finds it. Two days ago I threw the ball, I was on an adjacent path, into a field. Because of the sun I missed that it bounced oddly, out of the field and into a wide grass verge. Both she and I had no clue at all where the ball was. That's annoying when a ball costs around £5. I walked down the path and shrugged my shoulders to her. She knows that means "I have no idea where it is". She sniffed around the field, found (what I assume was the first bounce/scent), found the second, then ran out of the field, back to the path and found the ball deep in long grass. No errors, direct line. I may well be 'as capable' but those two words mean diddly (squat. Sorry!) "As capable" Are we not all born "as capable" of many things yet the nature/nuture kicks in?
- rolph 3y agoyou should start putting things of interest in the ball e.g money, thumbdrives, one of your lost pair of {X} etc.
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- KiwiJohnno 3y agoYeah, dogs have an amazing sense of smell. When I was a kid I used to pick up a pinecone and throw it for our lab-cross into an area under the pine trees that was littered in pinecones. She would run to where she saw it land and roll, then sniff around and find & return the exact pinecone I had thrown :)
- ycombinete 3y agoIf you throw the ball for our dog (malamute spaniel cross), he starts randomly searching with his nose down. Then he'll find the scent, and immediately start an increasingly narrow zig-zag pattern until he can figure out the direction, then he bolts straight towards the ball. All done at a gallop. This is even more clear if you roll the ball and it can leave a trail line down the grass.
- 123pie123 3y agoslightly related, but I found it entertaining How to Escape a Police Sniffing Dog - Mark Rober https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md75n8cyenA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md75n8cyenA
- sethammons 3y agoMy sister worked in urology. She could smell bladder cancer. She would collect the sample, catch a whiff, recognize the sharp scent, and then confirmation from the lab. She never told patients, but she would tell the doctor, "that one has cancer." It is wild that she can do that; they have dogs that do it. Similarly, a human smell factoid is humans are more sensitive to the smell of petrichor (fresh rain on a dry area) than sharks are to blood!
- morkalork 3y agoI've heard the same about c. difficile
- dogmatism 3y agoyeah, don't have to be a super-smeller for that one!
- nn3 3y agoI assume there are various variants of bladder cancer depending on what mutations caused the cancer. Is it more likely that she could smell some particular common variant?
- pxeger1 3y agoThis snippet is amusing: > Humans are an appealing animal model [...] because they can follow task instructions and accurately report behavioral strategies. Humans also tolerate manipulations, such as nostril occlusion, that may aggravate even well-trained dogs
- blueyes 3y agoNoam Sobel is the final co-author on this paper. He has worked on scent and many aspects of the human nose for years. He gives a long and insightful interview to Huberman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS7cNaBrkxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS7cNaBrkxo
- isaacfrond 3y agoFull paper: https://sci-hub.ru/https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1819 https://sci-hub.ru/https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1819