Gonna Use My Senses
You know when you hear something you can tell where the sound is coming from? How come you can’t do that with a smell?
You tend you just kind of walk into a smell.
“Hey, it smells of tacos.”
But you can’t tell where the source is, so you wander about a bit.
“Wow - it really smells of tacos now.”
And you’re like this big smelly pacing dufus.
“Hey, it is so tacoey right over here.”
But all the time it’s trial and error. If hearing was like that we’d probably be dead. True, you’ve got the waft, but imagine if you had to waft sounds into your ears? You don’t because hearing is directional. I think it’s something to do with your ears being on the side of you head, but then then our eyes are close together, and they work just fine.
I’m normally against genetic engineering* but I’d have to say that directional smell would be one improvement I would like to see. They can do it in cartoons, like when the dog smells a pie on a window ledge and he floats off in that direction, drifting with his nose in the vapour. That’s what I’m talking about.
I pass a sewage treatment plant on the way to work and it stinks**, especially when it’s raining, because that breaks the surface of the shitpools (sorry but they are). But how stupid is it that a whole busload of people can’t tell if the stench is coming from the left or the right ride of the road as we drive past?
Millions of years of evolution behind us and I could float an air biscuit at that moment, sitting right next to someone and they would have no idea it was me.
See with directional smell, I would be able to stand over a buffet and go straight to what I liked. I’d have that vital edge over the other diners.
It’s worth looking into, you think?
Smell you later.
*This is on account of my own physical perfection
** The plant stinks, that is, not work, although don’t get me started
February 15th, 2006 at 1:58 am
“Millions of years of evolution behind us and I could float an air biscuit at that moment, sitting right next to someone and they would have no idea it was me.”
Dammit, I wish I had that talent. They always seem to know it was me…
February 15th, 2006 at 3:59 am
Smell’s not directional because , though you do have two nostrils, they are on the same nose. Directional smelling would require having two noses.
And having two noses would spoil your physical perfection.
Do you REALLY wnt to know which side of the road is the smelliest , or exactly WHERE the tacos ( tacoey? Oh boy! ) are, at the expense of being gaped at and gawked at and made fun of?
No, I didn’t think so.
Oh, and I’m more of a Nick Frost kinda guy.
sorry.
No, I mean, Sorry.
February 15th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Though you have two nostrils, they actually join up again at the top, and there is only one sensor at the top there. If your nostrils led to two separate sensors then you’d be able to detect smell in stereo (albeit not very well, as the nostrils are only a few millimetres apart). However, it would play havoc with breathing, as you’d either have to breathe through one nostril only, or the two separate cavities would still have to join up at some point.
Unless, of course, you breathed in through one nostril and out through the other. But then one of them would get really cold and the other would get really warm.
It’s a conundrum.
February 15th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Ah - one nasal cavity. I didn’t think about that.
Too late, the project has already kicked off.
February 15th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Ah well. I’ll volunteer as a guine pig. I’m not all that physically perfect anyway.