Smell Is a Dance

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Each receptor is attracted to different kinds of things. Different people can smell the exact same thing and experience different smells, like ik. Scientists are looking at all this, the whole tango, and they are undeterred. It turns out you might actually be able to build a robot nose without really understanding how it works. Yes, i'll tell you after a lob.

Dogs can smell cancer, Covid-19, and many other health problems in humans. Now, scientists are trying to duplicate these powers in robotic sniffers. But there’s a big challenge here: Scientists don’t really understand how smell works. This is the third episode of our six-part series, Making Sense, and it originally ran on March 10, 2021.

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