What are the smells of your childhood? In this episode, Angelica and Bey chat with Dr. Nancy Rawson, Vice President of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, about the deep world of our senses and the future of human smell.
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Transcript
Hey, what's up? Welcome to So Curious!,
Speaker:a new podcast from The Franklin Institute.
Speaker:In this season, Human 2.0,
Speaker:we will be talking to scientists and non-scientists about technology,
Speaker:innovation, and the human experience.
Speaker:We're your hosts.
Speaker:I am Angelica Pasquini.
Speaker:And I am the Bul Bey, but you could just call me Bey.
Speaker:On today's episode,
Speaker:we're going to be talking about smell with Vice President
Speaker:of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Nancy Rawson.
Speaker:Sight, taste, touch, smell.... Hearing?
Speaker:Oh, that's the one.
Speaker:That was the one that we thought
Speaker:of last because we both love music so much.
Speaker:And we both need people to hear us.
Speaker:Yeah, it's true. You know, that was the one
Speaker:thing, and I think I've told you this before.
Speaker:You're a great listener.
Speaker:And someone being in comedy,
Speaker:I don't know, I think my projected thought is that they're looking
Speaker:for a space or a moment to show, to reveal, to tell.
Speaker:The prestige, I guess. Is that what that's called?
Speaker:But you take in information and you
Speaker:just respond in a really sharp, concise way.
Speaker:What's really cool is the science
Speaker:of creation and the science of connecting.
Speaker:And I think listening is a part of that.
Speaker:You listen to try to create in that moment, and you use the rest
Speaker:of the senses to do the same thing as well.
Speaker:And so trying to pull apart
Speaker:the senses, put them together and figure out how
Speaker:we use these things to navigate our spaces.
Speaker:It's something that drives me for sure, especially music.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you ever hear sounds and then get inspired, or words,
Speaker:or something someone saidn that helps influence your lyrics?
Speaker:Absolutely. And I'm really emo,
Speaker:so feelings like the touch and the feel of something really
Speaker:inspires me to try to how do I put something warm into sonics?
Speaker:How do I put something, I don't know, smelly into an 808 drum?
Speaker:You know what I mean? All those different things.
Speaker:I love playing around with senses, for sure.
Speaker:And I definitely can't wait
Speaker:to figure out how smell connects to a thought.
Speaker:How does taste connect to the smell?
Speaker:It's interesting because we can kind of taste through our smell.
Speaker:Like you ever smell something that's like you get it in your mouth?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Also, my sister can't hear if she doesn't have her glasses on.
Speaker:Okay? Wow.
Speaker:It's so dramatic.
Speaker:But she can't pay attention if she doesn't have her glasses on.
Speaker:She's like, wait, I have to get my glasses.
Speaker:I can't hear you. Okay.
Speaker:But you know what? It's real and it's true.
Speaker:It also makes me think of synesthesia like Jimi Hendrix had?
Speaker:And I think they say Andre 3000 has it, from Outkast.
Speaker:But is it Andre 2000?
Speaker:It's 3000.
Speaker:It's three. Yeah. He can taste, color and smell sound.
Speaker:Also, apparently Kanye.
Speaker:But you know what?
Speaker:I want to experience that.
Speaker:If that were like an exhibit, I would be so into going.
Speaker:That would be crazy. That'd be great.
Speaker:And I know one thing, too,
Speaker:that I've heard for years and have experience is when you're parallel
Speaker:parking, you have to turn the music down.
Speaker:You have to do it quietly because you can't concentrate.
Speaker:So there has to be something about
Speaker:loud noise, distraction, that plays around with your sight or
Speaker:focus for
Speaker:sure. There has to be something there. I need silence.
Speaker:I like silence.
Speaker:I think my food tastes better if it's quiet.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:You ever eat in a quiet room as opposed to...
Speaker:Well, I grew up Italian. Big household.
Speaker:Everyone was constantly talking.
Speaker:Now I'm obsessed with silence when eating.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Okay, let's just get right into it
Speaker:by talking to an expert today about smell.
Speaker:Our next guest is Nancy Rawson.
Speaker:Nancy Rawson is the Vice President, Associate Director,
Speaker:and Associate Member at the Monell Chemical Senses Center.
Speaker:Her research uses cell-based tools to understand and develop
Speaker:the function of chemosensory receptor cells.
Speaker:This understanding can then be used to treat and prevent various health
Speaker:challenges related to metabolism, aging, and neurological disorders.
Speaker:The Monell Center is the only independent scientific nonprofit
Speaker:dedicated to research on taste and smell.
Speaker:Hey, Nancy, welcome to the show.
Speaker:Can you please introduce yourself?
Speaker:I'm the Vice President
Speaker:of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.
Speaker:We've been here for over 50 years
Speaker:studying taste, smell, and nutrition.
Speaker:And my background ranges from science to business to dance.
Speaker:Cool. Well, thank you for being here.
Speaker:We're really excited and curious, of course, to talk to you.
Speaker:I wanted to go to..."o lfactory." Go ahead.
Speaker:I learned, like, a couple of seconds ago what that actually meant.
Speaker:And could you just explain it for the general audience?
Speaker:I thought it was a noun.
Speaker:So we have three chemical senses.
Speaker:These are chemicals that our bodies
Speaker:detect in the environment and help us respond appropriately to make
Speaker:sure we survive, and find mates, and avoid danger.
Speaker:So one of these is our sense of smell.
Speaker:And our sense of smell is
Speaker:biologically -based on a system called the olfactory system.
Speaker:We use the word "olfactory" as
Speaker:an adjective or "olfaction" is the noun.
Speaker:And, you know,
Speaker:I'm from Philadelphia, born and raised and all that jazz.
Speaker:When I see, like,
Speaker:"Ol" at the start of a word, I think it's like some "ye olde"
Speaker:language situation from Old City or something.
Speaker:Well, actually, it's funny you said that because the olfactory system is
Speaker:the oldest sensory system in our bodies, evolutionarily speaking.
Speaker:Wonderful.
Speaker:It's a system that evolved before anything else.
Speaker:The very first primitive little organisms swimming around
Speaker:in the soup had to be able to detect chemicals in their environment.
Speaker:Yeah, I do think we smell things before we see them in life.
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker:We were talking about smell before you came in.
Speaker:And how it helps us orient
Speaker:the entire world that we are existing in.
Speaker:I first just wanted to ask, how does a person, sort of,
Speaker:find their way to this specific part of science?
Speaker:What you drew to it?
Speaker:So I had a little circuitous path.
Speaker:I was very interested in nutrition
Speaker:and food intake and healthy diets and so forth.
Speaker:And I got a master's degree in nutrition.
Speaker:And then I went to work
Speaker:at Campbell Soup Company, and I was in the nutrition department.
Speaker:We were trying to lower the salt in the soup, as everybody wants to do.
Speaker:Yeah. And I got very interested in why do
Speaker:people like salt so much, and what does it do to the flavor
Speaker:of soup, and why is it so good, and asking all these "why" questions?
Speaker:And so I started to take courses at the University of Pennsylvania
Speaker:and eventually got my PhD in biology.
Speaker:The area I ended up doing my research in was more related
Speaker:to energy metabolism and appetite control.
Speaker:But I did some work
Speaker:at the Monell Chemical Senses Center as part of my research.
Speaker:And I got to know some of the work they were doing there.
Speaker:And when I went to continue my postdoc, I worked with someone
Speaker:who was studying olfaction, and he was using some really
Speaker:advanced techniques at the time for studying live cells through
Speaker:a microscope to see how they reacted to different stimuli.
Speaker:And these happen to be human olfactory neurons.
Speaker:So the actual nerve cells that detect odors.
Speaker:Right. My initial intent was to learn these
Speaker:techniques, go back and study energy metabolism.
Speaker:But I got so entranced by the sense of smell that I ended up spending
Speaker:the next 17 years studying smell, and evenually taste.
Speaker:I mean, where's the documentary? Let's get it.
Speaker:We need the rights to the movie! I'm obsessed with it!
Speaker:Angelica, I was going to say,
Speaker:what's so interesting about this So Curious!
Speaker:podcast is with each person
Speaker:and expert that comes in and talks about what they studied.
Speaker:I always am intimidated. Like, this is going to be such
Speaker:an incredible story, you know, t hey really wanted to dissect the world.
Speaker:And it's like, no, I wanted to know why
Speaker:soup was so salty, and why people liked it so much.
Speaker:And I'm like, that's a really simple inquiry.
Speaker:And so, I don't know, it makes it common for everybody.
Speaker:Just ask a question and follow that question and then see where
Speaker:that leads you in the world of science. I think that's incredible.
Speaker:They say that the salt is
Speaker:the compliments in the food, but it is not good for you.
Speaker:Too much is not good for you. Right, moderation!
Speaker:Too much is not good for you.
Speaker:Yeah, for real.
Speaker:So I'm going to ask a silly question
Speaker:and then get to some more serious ones.
Speaker:Earlier, you mentioned our sense
Speaker:of smell, helping with identifying mates.
Speaker:I've heard and seen some stories in the past of people enjoying....f
Speaker:or lack of language...a stinky person.
Speaker:And that being something that was a draw.
Speaker:Are you saying that that's not so much of a weird thing?
Speaker:That actually falls into a place of reasonability?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So our sense of smell is much better than most people give it credit for.
Speaker:For a long time,
Speaker:people were considered as not having a very good sense of smell because
Speaker:we use our vision so much, and our hearing.
Speaker:And it's certainly true
Speaker:that consciously that's what we think about more.
Speaker:But through many,
Speaker:many years of research and studying all kinds of animal systems,
Speaker:we've learned that really humans are in many ways as good as and in some
Speaker:ways better than many animals with our sense of smell.
Speaker:And it's just not always conscious.
Speaker:It's not a conscious recognition.
Speaker:So there has been research showing
Speaker:that people can certainly recognize others of their family.
Speaker:Mothers can recognize the smell of their infants.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:People definitely dig each other's smells.
Speaker:I mean, sometimes you like someone and you just don't know why.
Speaker:And there's this whole thing going on.
Speaker:And one of the ways that we've learned the importance of this is
Speaker:when people lose their sense of smell.
Speaker:And one of the things that we hear over and over again is,
Speaker:"I really miss the smell of my mate, or the smell of my child,
Speaker:not being able to smell my child." And that really brings it home.
Speaker:How important this sense is that you
Speaker:just don't recognize it until you don't have it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So now with the onset of COVID, we have smell loss.
Speaker:And the research being done is
Speaker:making strides in the science world to restore smell loss.
Speaker:This is part of what you work on, right?
Speaker:That's right. All right.
Speaker:So can you speak to this work?
Speaker:And what has been the process since COVID began?
Speaker:COVID has really changed the world of what we call chemosensory
Speaker:research, the research world into smell.
Speaker:There's been a huge coming together of scientists from all around
Speaker:the world who are now collecting data and integrating
Speaker:that information globally in a way that has never been done before.
Speaker:And it's really shown us how much
Speaker:progress we can make when that can happen.
Speaker:It's also really accelerated our
Speaker:work to be able to do better assessment of our sense of smell.
Speaker:One of the big challenges that we
Speaker:were hit with immediately was, we had these anecdotal reports
Speaker:of people losing their sense of smell, but we didn't have really
Speaker:good, valid, quick, inexpensive ways of measuring that sensory loss.
Speaker:And so we had to rely on self-report.
Speaker:And people aren't very good
Speaker:at self-assessing their sense of smell.
Speaker:Oh, yeah. So that's another aspect.
Speaker:And Monell has developed a rapid
Speaker:test called Sentinel that is "lift and sniff." It runs, you know, y
Speaker:ou put your phone up to the UPC code.
Speaker:It pops up some questions, you lift up these film strips
Speaker:and sniff each one and answer some questions.
Speaker:And that was funded
Speaker:by the National Institutes of Health to develop this test.
Speaker:And now we have a manufacturing partner.
Speaker:And what our goal is, is that when
Speaker:you go to your doctor, maybe when you go to your dentist,
Speaker:you'll have a smell test, the same way you have regular eye
Speaker:tests or hearing tests that we'll have smell testing.
Speaker:Yeah. Right.
Speaker:I have to ask what it smells like. Is it a flower?
Speaker:Is it strawberry?
Speaker:So there's three different...
Speaker:Well, there's a variety of odors that we put, and three strips.
Speaker:And so one of them has an odor.
Speaker:Two of them have no odor.
Speaker:So part of the test is, which one has the odor?
Speaker:So, if you can smell or not. Part of the test is how intense is
Speaker:that odor on a scale that you just move the slider.
Speaker:And then part is identification.
Speaker:So you're given four choices.
Speaker:And so you have to pick
Speaker:which of these four choices does it smell like?
Speaker:It might be popcorn,
Speaker:it might be floral, it might be minty, it might be bubblegum.
Speaker:So there's a variety of odors.
Speaker:You need to know what you're smelling.
Speaker:Yeah. And be able to identify it.
Speaker:100%. And something that stood out to us on the website is a section
Speaker:that's called "Digitizing Taste and Smell." Is what you just spoke
Speaker:about, does that fall under "Digitizing Taste and Smell?" So
Speaker:the concept with Digitizing Taste and Smell really goes beyond that,
Speaker:to the concept that you wrote of, "our
Speaker:smartphones become smell-phones." I love it.
Speaker:Right. No.
Speaker:Make a note. Okay.
Speaker:Copyright note. You heard it here first!
Speaker:Yes, it's you, all Nancy, "smell-phone." Love it.
Speaker:Okay. Yeah, so... Digitizing Taste and Smell. Yeah.
Speaker:So
Speaker:our vision there is ultimately that a mother will be able to enjoy
Speaker:the smell of her baby from wherever she is.
Speaker:And a doctor may be able to use some type of a device to detect,
Speaker:check your aroma from your breath, or from your blood,
Speaker:or your other systems, and transmit that information
Speaker:electronically to another site where they can analyze it and say, oh,
Speaker:we better change your medication, or we better do something.
Speaker:And so the phone itself that you're holding it will be able to do that?
Speaker:That's the technology of the future?
Speaker:I think that there will be devices like that.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's sort of reminiscent of the Star Trek tricorder kind of a concept.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So right now, we already have devices that are
Speaker:quite portable that can detect and analyze thousands and thousands
Speaker:and thousands of chemical compounds very quickly.
Speaker:They're very expensive today, of course.
Speaker:Right. So that technology has to advance.
Speaker:Then the technology for -- and this
Speaker:is actually the harder part -- for converting that information
Speaker:into information that relates it to the smell perception.
Speaker:So that's the hard part.
Speaker:So if you think about a television
Speaker:set, the color on the television set, we have a code for describing
Speaker:every color that we can see, a mathematical code.
Speaker:We can describe it precisely.
Speaker:And if I use that code to describe a color, anybody,
Speaker:anywhere in the world can replicate that color, and it will be accurate.
Speaker:We do not have that code for smell today.
Speaker:And so that's where the research is
Speaker:going on, to try to understand that code, which
Speaker:really means understanding how the brain does this task.
Speaker:Yeah, that's fascinating. Smell is so emotional.
Speaker:I would love to hear your thoughts
Speaker:on what the heck is going on when you smell something.
Speaker:And then there's this whole wave
Speaker:of emotion that flows through your body.
Speaker:Right, right! Right.
Speaker:So from a simple anatomy
Speaker:perspective, these nerve cells that connect
Speaker:to the olfactory bulb, the next connection is the part
Speaker:of the brain responsible for memory and emotion.
Speaker:And so that's part of the reason.
Speaker:And the other part of the reason is that these senses -- especially
Speaker:smell, because it is the distance one, right, y ou get that first
Speaker:--- is so important for your survival.
Speaker:If you were a primitive animal and you couldn't smell the predator
Speaker:coming, you did not survive in the gene pool, right?
Speaker:Totally. It needs to have that very rapid,
Speaker:very tight connection with appropriate emotional
Speaker:responses, whether positive or negative.
Speaker:Okay. This was fascinating to us.
Speaker:Dogs sniffing out cancer?
Speaker:So this is something that ...Can you speak about this projec,t and what
Speaker:it says about the future of smell research?
Speaker:What are the possibilities?
Speaker:And also, what is the dog smelling? What the heck is going on?
Speaker:Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker:So it's been known for a long time.
Speaker:And actually human doctors did this when my dad was young.
Speaker:The doctor would come into the room
Speaker:and he would smell the patient and use that for diagnosis.
Speaker:Amazing. New doctors don't do that.
Speaker:But dogs, dogs can be very
Speaker:sensitive, but what they are really good at is discrimination.
Speaker:So dogs have a lot more of these odor receptors types than we do.
Speaker:And they're also very good
Speaker:at creating air flow turbulence that makes them very
Speaker:acutely sensitive to very tiny differences in odor characteristics.
Speaker:So dogs are really good
Speaker:at discriminating when there's differences.
Speaker:And this was first noticed in epileptic patients who had dogs
Speaker:that would be able to alert them when they were about to have
Speaker:a seizure, or sometimes in diabetics,
Speaker:that were going into ketosis, because their body odor changes.
Speaker:And so everything...your metabolism gives off all kinds of chemicals.
Speaker:And these chemicals come out
Speaker:in the skin, in your sweat, in your breath.
Speaker:And any shift in that metabolic
Speaker:state, whether it's a little bit of inflammation or whether it's
Speaker:an infection or whether it's in the case of diabetes,
Speaker:for instance, changes in blood sugar,
Speaker:that changes the types of chemicals that are released.
Speaker:And one of the things that we're
Speaker:thinking now is that a lot of what the dog is actually smelling isn't
Speaker:necessarily that chemical, but the result of your skin or your
Speaker:oral microbiome acting on those chemicals.
Speaker:Because it's these bacteria, our
Speaker:microbiome, that are giving off these volatile chemicals all
Speaker:the time. These small, really tiny little molecules
Speaker:that are what the dogs are picking up on.
Speaker:So a lot of the research is going into now, better understanding,
Speaker:how the microbiome is influencing the chemicals that are being
Speaker:produced through our metabolic processes and our disease processes.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Again, one of the end goals for this
Speaker:type of work is to develop these devices that will smell you, that
Speaker:will collect that smell information
Speaker:and transmit it in a way that the machine -learning
Speaker:large databases [with] historical information about all
Speaker:of the different chemical odor signatures that might be associated
Speaker:with different aromas, d ifferent diseases, can be analyzed and then
Speaker:used to generate diagnostic information.
Speaker:How do the senses affect our nutrition?
Speaker:You're passionate about nutrition as well, right?
Speaker:Yes. So our smell often has to do
Speaker:with what we're eating, obviously, right?
Speaker:And then that's coming out of our body.
Speaker:So what are your thoughts
Speaker:on nutrition as far as ....Obviously it's helping our health,
Speaker:but how does it relate to the work that you're doing?
Speaker:So one of our research themes we're calling "sensory nutrition." Okay.
Speaker:Which is really kind of
Speaker:a new term for work that has been going on for a long time,
Speaker:where we are applying sensory science to better understand our
Speaker:nutritional health and improve our nutritional health.
Speaker:So flavor, what we think of as
Speaker:flavor, is a mixture of odor, taste, chemical irritation, texture.
Speaker:All of these senses go into what we think of as flavor.
Speaker:And really it's the flavor
Speaker:of foods --we eat what we like, at the end of the day.
Speaker:Yes, yes we do! I worked as a nutritionist, I can tell you!
Speaker:You can tell people, "you should eat this or you should
Speaker:eat that." People will eat what they like!
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So from a diet control perspective, flavor perception is very important.
Speaker:And from a health perspective, the sensory aspects of food
Speaker:contribute to how we metabolize our food.
Speaker:So even before you've eaten
Speaker:anything, just as you're smelling the food and putting it in,
Speaker:at the beginning, [when you] first put it in your
Speaker:mouth before you've actually swallowed, that triggers
Speaker:neural processes that tell your stomach,
Speaker:"food is on its way, so get ready!" And triggers the release
Speaker:of different types of enzymes that are going to be digesting the food.
Speaker:So our sensory experience of food
Speaker:does contribute important ways to our metabolism and our digestion
Speaker:of food and making sure that the body can use that food efficiently.
Speaker:Are we able to alter our personal taste to control our diets?
Speaker:So, taste can shift. Okay.
Speaker:It was shown a number of years ago by Gary Beacham from Monell that,
Speaker:if you put people on a low salt diet for a period of time,
Speaker:their preferred level of salt does decrease.
Speaker:So you actually can shift their preference.
Speaker:What we don't know for sure yet is
Speaker:if the preference shift was due to changes at the level
Speaker:of the tongue, like did they become more sensitive to salt?
Speaker:There's some evidence for that. B ut it's not completely known.
Speaker:Or, whether it's completely going
Speaker:on centrally, in the central nervous system.
Speaker:Right. And probably both.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because these systems do tune themselves to their environment.
Speaker:We know for both smell and taste that if you are exposed...
Speaker:An example in smell, there's a chemical called
Speaker:androstenone, which is from boars. It's, like,
Speaker:a sexual odor from boars, that some people can't detect at all.
Speaker:Some people are really sensitive to it.
Speaker:Wow. Some people are in-between.
Speaker:If you're not very sensitive to it, but you expose yourself to it over
Speaker:a period of time, you can become sensitized to it.
Speaker:So you actually start to make more
Speaker:of those receptors that can detect it.
Speaker:It's so fascinating. Are you able
Speaker:to share any, I guess, a banal story of someone losing
Speaker:their sense of smell and taste and what effect came from that?
Speaker:Right. So we're learning through COVID
Speaker:in a big way that viruses are the major cause for smell loss.
Speaker:And when people do lose their sense of smell, as I mentioned before,
Speaker:it has dramatic effects on their emotional health because
Speaker:they report feeling isolated from people.
Speaker:And I think this comes back to what we were saying before about actually
Speaker:having some experience of other people's odors, even though we're
Speaker:not always conscious about it. It also can affect their food intake.
Speaker:So, I had one woman years ago
Speaker:who the only thing she could eat after she lost her sense of smell
Speaker:from a head injury were cinnabuns. W hich, because of the cinnamon,
Speaker:is trigeminal, so that's a chemical irritant.
Speaker:It works on a different system.
Speaker:And the fat, and the sugar, and the texture, right?
Speaker:But that's hardly a healthy diet, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that will have effects mentally, too, if that's what you're eating.
Speaker:I mean, it's all connected.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:We're being faced with this global experiment in smell loss.
Speaker:A lot of the people do recover.
Speaker:They seem to recover.
Speaker:But then often when they go through this period of recovery,
Speaker:what they experience is something called parasmia.
Speaker:And this is almost worse in some
Speaker:ways than loss of smell, because what happens here is things
Speaker:don't smell the way they're supposed to.
Speaker:And unfortunately, they usually smell bad.
Speaker:So your cup of coffee might smell like smelly trash.
Speaker:Right. How does that happen?
Speaker:Is it something that your brain knows the smell of?
Speaker:Something disgusting, and there's like a crossed wire?
Speaker:It's sort of like a crossed wire.
Speaker:But if you go back to that pattern
Speaker:recognition concept, or if you think about playing
Speaker:a chord on a piano and some keys are missing. I nstead of hearing
Speaker:the chord that you should be hearing, you might be hearing
Speaker:something very different and dissonant.
Speaker:Dissonance, yeah.
Speaker:So as different parts of your nose recover at different rates,
Speaker:it's likely that the receptors, the different receptors,
Speaker:are regenerating intermittently or in different rates.
Speaker:So not uniformly.
Speaker:So that's messing up this code. Right.
Speaker:And so the brain is doing the best
Speaker:it can with the information that it's getting.
Speaker:One of the things that COVID has
Speaker:done, fortunately, is direct more funding towards
Speaker:research to help develop the tools that we need to really understand
Speaker:better how to help these systems regenerate.
Speaker:Could you tell us about the future of regenerating loss of senses?
Speaker:As far as the future, Monell and other places have really
Speaker:developed some phenomenal tools to help us identify the specific
Speaker:growth factors and potential therapeutic treatments that will
Speaker:promote regeneration of these systems.
Speaker:The "ultimate" would be either a mixture
Speaker:of compounds that helps the system regenerate naturally,
Speaker:or potentially isolating the stem cells that you can then put back
Speaker:into the nose to create new mature olfactory neurons and sort
Speaker:of repopulate the system to start regenerating itself.
Speaker:And I do think that that technology is within reach.
Speaker:It's certainly years away, but we have the ability to get there.
Speaker:Right. And I think that what we can do
Speaker:today, really, obviously, other than staying as
Speaker:healthy as you can, wear your mask, not getting these viruses,
Speaker:because every time the system takes a hit like this,
Speaker:it increases the risk of your sense of smell not coming back.
Speaker:Nancy Rawson, you are amazing.
Speaker:Thank you for coming and sharing
Speaker:your experience, your knowledge, your stories.
Speaker:This is really, really fascinating. Seriously.
Speaker:Thank you so much. Well, thank you.
Speaker:It's been a pleasure.
Speaker:Okay. I'm processing.
Speaker:I'm downloading that information into my human brain.
Speaker:I think it's time for us to talk about it.
Speaker:Okay. Well, that was amazing.
Speaker:It was a breath of fresh air. Yeah.
Speaker:I had to say, I'm sorry.
Speaker:I love when someone is really specialized in what they do,
Speaker:and it's something I know nothing about that I can just learn.
Speaker:And there's no one in my life who's
Speaker:ever spoken to me about smell that way.
Speaker:Right? I mean, wasn't that nice?
Speaker:What sticks with me is
Speaker:how deep of a connection you can have through smell like that could
Speaker:be the vehicle for you to lock in memory.
Speaker:That could be the vehicle for you to feel a very strong connection
Speaker:with someone and map out your environment.
Speaker:And I really appreciated being told
Speaker:that human beings have just as good a smell as dogs.
Speaker:We're just different. I don't want to use good,
Speaker:bad or better, but I really appreciated that.
Speaker:I loved when she also spoke about how people could smell diseases.
Speaker:Right!
Speaker:That was really interesting, Wasn't it?
Speaker:The dogs sniffing cancer,
Speaker:but also even just the concept of people being able to smell when
Speaker:the body is about to do something different.
Speaker:And it was a regular practice in the early 1900s or so, right?
Speaker:The doctor would walk in and sniff you.
Speaker:Yeah. You know what?
Speaker:I'm open to it.
Speaker:Thanks so much to Nancy Rawson for sharing her experience.
Speaker:And thanks so much to you for tuning
Speaker:in to this episode of the So Curious! podcast.
Speaker:This podcast is part of The Franklin Institute.
Speaker:The Franklin Institute is a science museum located in Philadelphia.
Speaker:The Franklin Institute's mission is
Speaker:to inspire a passion for learning about science and technology.
Speaker:For more information on everything
Speaker:about The Franklin Institute, visit fi.edu.
Speaker:This podcast is produced by Radio Kismet.
Speaker:Radio Kismet is Philadelphia's premier podcast network
Speaker:for businesses looking to develop their own branded podcast content.
Speaker:Check them out at radiokismet.com.
Speaker:There's a lot of people who make this podcast happen.
Speaker:Thanks to the producers Joy Montefusco and Jayatri Das.
Speaker:Our managing producer Emily Charish.
Speaker:Our operations head Christopher Plant.
Speaker:Our associate producer Liliana Green.
Speaker:Our audio team Christian, Cedarlund,
Speaker:Goldie Langley, Lauren DeLuca and Brad Florent. Our
Speaker:development producer, Opeola Bukola. Our science writer
Speaker:Kira Vayette and our graphic designer Emma Sager.
