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jcynixlast Saturday at 4:31 PM1 replyview on HN

The sense oft smell must be one of the oldest senses, think of small entities swimming in some "primordial" soup looking for nutritious stuff.

What I found most interesting to learn about our sense of smell some years ago is that "We Smell With Every Organ In Our Body, Not Just Our Noses" cf. https://www.ravishly.com/2014/10/16/smell-nose-olfactory-rec...


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randycupertinolast Saturday at 8:21 PM

I read an interesting book about smell and it mentioned that smell is the only sense that bypasses the thalamus, which is why smells often trigger emotions before you recognize the associated conscious thought. Olfactory signals go straight from the nose to our limbic system. It was The Forgotten Sense by Jonas Olofsson.

Also the "humans can recognize 10,000 unique scents" is outdated, a modern study by Science found humans can discriminate over a trillion smells!

Interesting stuff.

Personally I have been getting very into different perfumes lately, it's a very fun hobby! I love getting the different samples and finding new unique ones I love. My current favorite is Prada Infusion de Rhubarbe, it's clean, tangy and fresh with rhubarb and citrus. My partner got me a perfume sample pack for Christmas and it's been so much fun trying new ones each morning :)