Your Sense of Smell Is Better Than You Think

Human's sense of smell seems to be better than most people think, and an Australian museum teamed up with some rock climbers to try to help save an endangered species.
Hosted by: Hank Green
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Sources:
Smell
science.sciencemag.org/content...
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
www.nature.com/neuro/journal/...
Lord Howe Island Update
australianmuseum.net.au/media...
australianmuseum.net.au/blogp...
www.zoo.org.au/sites/default/...
Images:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

[@annaalfera8700]

*sniff* *gasp* *looks dramatically at nonexistent camera* "Someone is eating my chips"

[@CarthagoMike]

_shit_ *hides Chips*

[@lutyanoalves444]

Eyy gimme some.... ...sorry

[@undeadassassin0438]

.

[@Alex2Buzz]

+

[@RoOo796]

Why is it that our noses run, but our feet smell?

[@evil_glass_wolf3087]

Reuben K lol I get it

[@LionHeartSamy]

Because the English language is funny like that. It's just like how you bake cookies, but cook bacon.

[@leemo142]

Baking is a sub category of cooking. To be specific you generally fry bacon.

[@carboxysome2630]

Came for the jokes,was not dissapointed.

[@crimsonlight1385]

Reuben K lmao one of my friends said that at camp

[@TotallyRandomForever]

I was born with anosmia (lack of a sense of smell), so I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with that title.

[@SciShow]

That seems fair.

[@TorquemadaTwist]

Danny Pacione That stinks

[@youteubakount4449]

how long did it take you to realize that farts actually smell bad?

[@emilyallis9293]

SAME! Never smelt anything in my life. Pretty certain my sense of smell is as bad as I think

[@AzureKite]

That man upset lmao

[@sonikku956]

I can smell rain slowly coming in when it's miles away. I'm sure other people can do that too.

[@assman7969]

That's because the wind carries the scent, you can't actually smell things that far away.

[@kagutsuchi969]

+BB-8 It's not plants expecting rain, it's the scent caused by chemicals that plants use to reserve moister being dissolved in the rain.

[@Blauwevingers]

sonikku956 best smell in the world

[@soiledhalo2296]

sonikku956 agreed!

[@sonikku956]

Wow, thanks guys!

[@palebluedot7435]

man hunt chocolate chocolate natural prey animal grazes majestically in bacon fields

[@CarthagoMike]

sure that it was a man?

[@universemilkywaysolarsyste5671]

I’m extremely sensitive to smell. That’s why I suffer so much when taking trains and buses.

[@lanacooper2086]

Universe Milky way Solar system Earth i am also very sensitive to smell thats why i suffer from living in my home city. Its not clean at all. Their is garbage everywhere.

[@GrumpyHobo]

I hunt and in the woods I have an exceptional sense of smell. When in my home, I still smell but being inside feels like it blocks it. For example if I have pots of flowers in my house, I still smell it up close, but if i put the pot outside, I can smell it from many feet away. if you go camping in a tent, the longer your out in nature, your sense of smell increases drastically.

[@hkpaleknight8131]

Stop unlocking life hacks

[@elvior6198]

in a neighborhood i didn't know, with some friends, after a good night, i found a bakery just with my smell. literally I could feel the direction to it. I was hungry as hell and my mouth was full of saliva in the process

[@beasty6881]

Elvio R How did you do it?

[@hkpaleknight8131]

@@beasty6881 I smelled it.

[@viergiesabdapaganini3282]

The Smelly Man

[@AllenBrooks]

Truth, I'm deaf in one ear and my sense of smell is much sharper! Even my doctor said it's normal compensation. Very cool video!

[@WebWingRecords]

I couldn't help but laugh at the 2:22 mark. Right there with ya Hank! >.

[@petterabrahamssonbolstad1728]

I would love to support you on Patreon, but I don't have any scents...

[@jeromeorji1057]

IMO, the fact that you watch the show counts as support. I can't provide on Patreon but I can still cheer them on. Just my two cents.

[@amneenja5720]

Petter Abrahamsson Bolstad this pun doesn't make any scents

[@biddleTM]

... ...... go home

[@hkpaleknight8131]

@@amneenja5720 your making me lose my scents of human decency

[@SlyPearTree]

I wish you would do an episode about how the sense of smell and the sense of taste work together. Some people say they cannot taste if their nose is blocked, like at all. While I think my sense of smell contribute to my sense of taste (specially with wines and good beers), I still can taste if I can't smell.

[@dannythomas9583]

Never have seen a video say 56 seconds ago.

[@solar0wind]

Well, to me it says 3 years ago😂

[@salmiakki7652]

I use to work in emerge department, you can smell diabetes very easily (think nail polish remover), you can smell a person fever (I should specify you don't have to come too close to them, both of these examples absolutely fill the room) you can smell when a person takes particular types of drugs, and you can smell when a person is about to die, "the sweet smell of death" is an expression for a reason, it literally smells like steak with a tiny bit of perfume on it

[@shadowprince4482]

Was that a mom's spaghetti reference at the beginning?

[@GrumpyHobo]

Shadow Prince no, it was not.

[@LivingInTragedy]

The fact that humans saved a stick bug insect thing actually makes me happy for some reason.

[@ViraIshnia]

lol all I can think of now is some guy on his hands and knees sniffing the dirt hunting chocolate

[@4loscomments]

The smell thing is interesting, but in terms of olfactory receptors, dogs have considerably more GCPRs for this purpose than people, which suggests that they have greater precision in their sense of smell and better able to distinguish smells, so I guess it depends on what you are considering a "good sense of smell," to mean. I don't know of any studies that show that humans can smell biochemical changes that would indicate a seizure is going to occur, their blood sugar has dropped, or the presence of cancer, but dogs can be specially trained for this purpose.

[@willhudson5625]

4loscomments Another thing to consider is that the study use a dragged pheasant and chocolate essential oil and one of those things is a whole lot smellier than the other.

[@4loscomments]

I mean maybe but things like that can be controlled for

[@petra5979]

They didn't say humans have as good a sense of smell as dogs, just that it is comparable. Also I highly doubt someone ever trained a human like they train dogs to smell specific things, it's not like any dog can do that if you tell it to.

[@4loscomments]

That's true but I'm just saying that comparable ≠ equal.

[@GepardenK]

+Petra Koelewijn You train the dog to identify the smell and communicate it to us. The dogs can still smell it even if we do not train them, they just won't care.

[@kellyloganme]

SciShow movie pitch: A group of alien criminals on the run discover Earth through a Sci Show episode that is transmitted into space and concoct a scheme to kidnap the President of Space for ransom.

[@LuckyThe7Tailed]

Thank you for another video!

[@dansiegel2811]

I was hoping this would be about the research conducted by Dr. John McGann!! (The smell researcher). He was my 'Sensation and Perception' class professor a couple years ago...he's amazing! I work in the lab next to his and say hi to him all the time...this video has me feeling some retrospective star-strickenness! Dr. McGann, in his lesson on smell, actually showed us a video of him blindfolded, crawling through a field, sniffing for the chocolate oil (as Hank mentioned), and he suggested we try it for a fun self-experiment. So I did! It felt pretty dumb and awkward, but it's true! When you're close to the ground like a quadruped, and you're focused more on scents than sights, it's remarkably easy to pick up on faint odors. As a huge SciShow fan, it's pretty exciting to see one of my favorite professors' research featured on it. Dr. McGann is a really great guy, incredibly friendly (he actually gave me a Coke from his office when I was studying for his exam at his office hours), and really interesting to listen to. Hearing Hank repeatedly refer to him as "the researcher" was almost disappointing.

[@TheLolzHacker]

3:42, now that's a great euphemism!

[@julienparis6933]

Why did rats think that the tree lobsters were hunted to extinction?

[@kingchickenwing4887]

What do you mean?

[@wearealreadydeadfam8214]

Julien Paris Fake rat news.

[@OmnipotentMango]

I can tell almost everyone I know apart by their smell, I can tell who is in a room based on smell, and I can track things short distances based on smell.

[@mokin-rui717]

I know my sense of smell is much more acute than most ppl I meet.

[@LivingTar]

I'm loving hanks yellow n' white shirt, a bright change :D

[@webx135]

Your transitions are so on point.

[@CarthagoMike]

that bee sure found a nice hiding spot

[@2ny424]

I can smell how old the leftover coffe is when my parents invite me for dinner.

[@AARONKAYE]

these wildlife scientists are basically catching rare Pokemon

[@jokke1702]

SR we love you

[@desireewolf9458]

I can smell when its gonna rain and I can smell cheese from rooms away :D

[@soumiaghoggali5281]

Me too Desiree Wolf I can smell iven people can't sniff it

[@philophos]

Dat transition tho "... like sight" (goes onto talk about insects)

[@MariaGarcia281]

I think it's more like selective sense of smell and yup it's true what they say: as you get older your sense of smell gets duller

[@2ezRicky]

Ball's pyramid? XD that made me chuckle.

[@lizerdspherex]

Well dang, I thought I was something special finding stuff with my sense of smell.

[@lizgichora6472]

Thank you!

[@Shawnmyrelle]

I love my sense of smell. I bask in scents often. I actively cut it off too, I learned that I can see and hear better when Im not using my nose.

[@torjusekkje6264]

Great, Thanks

[@GreerFried]

SR Foxley: SciShow legend.

[@robinschepenburg8282]

always thumbs up for Hank

[@FatManLaughing]

Man, SR Foxley has been the president of space forever.

[@trilloff]

Vanessa: They named a bug after me...

[@manfromnantucket9544]

How 'bout I biodiverse my foot on that rock lobster? Holy crap that thing is freakish

[@nicoarete8189]

Immediately thought of the Richard Feynman story of smelling books.

[@deltablaze77]

Hank you rock!

[@typograf62]

I once smelled a hare at a distance of about 700 m. I followed the scent and located a betting site and a pile of hare dung, so I assume that my nose was right. I often complain about the smell of hot plastic or ammonia at work. Hot plastic (polystyrene) is not that weird, the ammonia appears to come from some old tubing in the "aula" (that - surprise - was once a machine hall with a cooling system). And I can hear the sound of flies running on the table, butterflies fluttering about, spiders running in the dark of night and the cats sneaking around in the field. I just located one by the sound of fur against grass, scorned it, and the cat came forward! Doctors once assumed that I must have hallucinations but they apologized later. It is really possible for some persons. But I have never met a bar of choccolate wandering around in the field. The trouble is, that I never know if someone just fired a gun or someone just slammed a door far away.

[@TheOffBrandGinger]

I can smell rain before it rains

[@soumiaghoggali5281]

Me too buddy I have I felling of smell

[@ancatatianachivu7577]

I relate to this

[@MickeyD2012]

Since I switched to vaping, it certainly has gotten much better.

[@ShadowsVale]

As often as SRFoxley is president of space, you'd swear he/she was single handedly supporting the show XD

[@BlackReshiram]

And here I thought my feeling like I ran into an olfactory wall when a room has been cleaned was unnormal well im glad to be proven wrong!

[@elle9344]

So that's how Patrick Jane keeps knowing who the victim was like.

[@thenulookatme]

Thank you for not "snubbing" the sense of smell. I have acquired anosmia, and it is wonderful to have you give credence to this sense (which is also the origin of flavor, which is a WHOLE DIFFERENT topic. Here is an idea. Short story: I learned that artificially FLAVORED foods do not TASTE the same to people like me. I think it would be very interesting to learn HOW artificial flavor is created, especially since I have firsthand experience understanding the difference regarding taste (not to be confused with flavor). I also have a question as a licensed massage therapy about AROMAtherapy. Is it smell that stimulates the different emotional reactions, or is it beyond it? I have been wary and cynical just due to my life's change. Again, thank you kindly. Abi, a TBI survivor with anosmia

[@roscuro1787]

I think its time for SciShow to answer the most important question in SciShow history: Who is SR Foxley and how did he get such a cool name?

[@SrFoxley]

Oh surely it's not the most important question, though I do agree it ranks right up there with, "Why is there hair around my anus?" or the yest to be produced "What is the least interesting fact?"

[@Sparrow420]

Love the shirt hank.

[@The_VDG]

Sr Foxley is the best Patreon Patron ever

[@istvansipos9940]

While jogging in the woods, I always sniff out boars nearby. I also detect choclate and oranges (f.e) in closed spaces, and while walking on the street, smokers on a balcony / in a window

[@ravirr513]

I remember from working with propane that humans can detect ethyl mercaptan in ridiculously minute quantities. Like 1 part per billion minute.

[@mysteryman7877]

And then we find congestion---where people realize that they can't smell shit because they can't breath through their nose!

[@Enkiaswad]

That's true, sometimes I recognize a store from its smell, minutes before I see it! The store in question is mostly Lush, which you can smell miles away xD

[@BatteryAcid1103]

That's a very nice white and gold shirt you're wearing, Hank. :)

[@rolandodr9834]

Well I mean when working in my chemistry lab, my partner mixed Na2S with CuSO4 and immediately gagged. Took me 2 minutes to finally smell the reaction and I never moved

[@downsidebrian]

SR Foxley for President of Space for life!

[@katheymann2334]

Some are more sensitive to odors than others. I'm one of those that can smell odors when others cannot. Find odors that are disagreeable that others do not. It does make life difficult sometimes.

[@Goabnb94]

One thing to remember is that cats, dogs, snakes etc, all of whom are known for good smell, all have some mechanism, whether it be a wet nose or tongue that allows scent molecules to stick to it so they can get a better smell and track it better, even track the direction of the smell (ie left or right). Humans do not.

[@YuBeace]

I have a chronic swelling in my nose, that needs to be reduced surgically- I had surgery before but it just grew back to closing my nose. Anyway, whenever my nose WAS open, thanks to xylometazoline or just a lucky day; every smell would come in SO STRONGLY... one time I went to a market with my nose open and hyperactive and that was a bad experience, I smelt people's deodorant and perfumes and all the market stands at the same time, I smelt the babies and the dogs and GOD I just had NO FILTER, it was exhausting.

[@vealck]

Nice white-gold shirt, Hank!

[@giturownfren6005]

0:17 sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when i was young

[@haerdalis84]

KZbin: your smell is better than you think Covid: well yes but actually no

[@jennadrake6011]

lmao i thought the title said "your sense of smell of butter is better than you think"

[@watsonwrote]

Sometimes when I'm hungry it's incredible what I can smell from a distance. But the time that convinces me humans have decent smell was when I was walking home from work in the summer and smelled something sweet and pleasent--so I followed the smell for a while until I found a wall of blackberry bushes full of the most perfectly ripe, sun-warmed berries I've ever eaten. I never would've wandered over there it I hasn't smelled it

[@toyotaprius79]

Not surprised by our sense of smell. You can make a fresh Belgian waffle a mile away from me and *I Will Find It* !!

[@SilverWolf-he6zh]

Yay! closer to my dog's then expected!

[@patricialabas5170]

If you haven't done so already, please do one on how humans recognize faces in places there aren't.

[@thegardenofeatin5965]

You know what I just realized, to my utter horror: I'm not subscribed to SciShow! Fixing that on the quickfast!

[@we.allwin]

Always knew I smelled pretty good

[@rajakrishnansomou9758]

nice this is the earliness ive been to a video

[@MithranArkanere]

I've been able to find where my mom hides the chocolate by smell since I was 5.

[@soumiaghoggali5281]

Me too

[@DragonFruitXVI]

Ha jokes on you I can smell! ... runs in the family

[@necrisro]

This is what i miss since i started smoking, it affected my sense of smell greatly.

[@Darkendeep]

Can you do an episode on the effect of aluminum foil hats? When I wear mine I do feel better and a little more focused, is this due to a placebo effect or are there actual measurable benefits to wearing a shiny cap? What I gathered from other less credible sources are the benefits of wearing an Reynolds wrap hat: the aluminum keeps your head cool in temperature, it blocks electromagnetic pulses, and it's a safety net to make you feel better about the NSA.

[@CorpusOrganic]

last i had read some of the best eyes in the world belonged to shrimp. the specific shrimp could see more of the spectrum then we could at a much higher degree of accuracy. as far as humans, i believe most are things we think of as taste is actually scent. when i am thinking of a food combination. i don't think of how it will taste on my tongue. i think of how it will smell as i am eating it. as long as i do that i rarely pick a bad combo.

[@Vanalovan]

Haha that segway though

[@TexelGuy]

Sooo it's just like how computer chips are manufactured. We used to have over 45 nanometer manufacturing processes but now we're down to a maximum of 8 (Or less, I don't read much of the news lately) nanometers but the performance delivered is much, much better than before, while also being highly efficient in power consumption. Think of mice's olfactory bulbs as the 45 nanometer and humans as 8 nanometer bulbs. Don't judge it by it's size people ;).

[@ollystewart6299]

Foxley is just the lord of science

[@spiralpython1989]

No wonder Paul Broca was convinced that peeps have limited sense of smell; the left over dinner caught in his extreme sideburns probably meant he could only smell gravy... and thus went out to prove his own limitations...

[@pay1370]

gotta give some points to paul tho, he's got some epic sideburns

[@EthanDyTioco]

*a person with a bad sense of smell*: is this some kind of sick joke?

[@TheYvelitza]

my sense of smell is shit right now because I'm sick 😂

[@firstlast-ld3co]

In regard to smell sensitivity I think further study needs to be done into acquired tmau. This secondary form of pathological affliction is SO DISCREET that I've observed repeatedly people dismissing their apocrine signals , repeatedly touching the sites and virtually drowning at the mucous membranes because it is actually very hard to detect. However, Some people are sensitive to 1 part In 10^9 , verified by ncbi. The observable phenomena of gassing up a classroom with your skin and watching fifty adults have near allergic reactions and EVERY ONE OF THEM DISMISSES THE SAME SYMPTOMS UNTIL THEY NOTICE IT IN EACH OTHER. And I didn't know I had tmau2 until I started noticing my presence made people appear allergic to me. Just an experience and food for thought

[@capillarysystem]

your smell helps your taste buds

[@Skoenner]

I walked into a burnning room some 20 years ago and ever since then I am super sensitive to the smell of smoke.

[@NyssaT]

I can tell what coworker has been on the elevators before me by the smell 90% of the time

[@malimaslacak1]

I have a quastion and I couldnt find yours video about it, so: Why some smells stick to things (fabric, skin etc) and others dont?

[@thevanillatoast]

Nice Tactical Thumbnail Change.

[@g.money.moviesgingathejedi251]

awesome!!! :D

[@BryanMeadows011235]

I lost my girlfriend in Walmart once, and I wondered if I could find her by smell. So I closed my eyes and walked in the direction of the most familiar sweet smell of her. As I would come to a left or right choice I would smell intently and base my decision on smell alone. It took me so much less time than actually using my eyes. I totally found her by the straightest path with my nose!!

[@pistonpkm]

I always thought we only had a sense of smell to amplify our sense of taste. But to be fair i do think it is quite handy at determining if food is in good condition to be consumed.

[@CaffieneKitty]

If SR Foxley was ever NOT President of Space, I for one would be incredibly disoriented.

[@SrFoxley]

Actually this is the case most of the time! I'm technically only President of Space one day per month, which leaves 27-30 other days that can be claimed, and occasionally someone does!

[@CaffieneKitty]

Really? I don't think I've ever seen it not be you. I must have missed some videos somehow! O.O Regardless, thank you for your mighty contribution to popular science education! :-)

[@jes1993]

I have a really good sense of smell. Certain smells can completely change my mood.

[@beasty6881]

Jesika Battles How do you get that ability? Was you born with it?