It’s a well-known fact that not everyone smells the world in the same way. The temptation is to say that some people are simply better smellers, in much the same way that some people have better vision, or a better grasp of geometry. But a recent study from Rockefeller University in New York City suggests that the way we smell the world may be more subtle than our other senses.
Smell occurs at the top of the nasal cavity, in the 400 olfactory receptors that call your nose home. Odors bind to the receptors, activating a specific pattern. That pattern helps your brain understand what it is smelling, how strong that smell is, and whether you like the smell.
Scientists have long hypothesized that the differences between how people taste the world probably have more to do with differences in how we smell the world. And it turns out, all those cilantro haters out that insisting that it tastes like soap aren’t wrong. The new study not only establishes a link between smell and taste but also to your DNA.
In fact, your 400 receptors are busy little buggers. It turns out that the scents you perceive and how you perceive them can each be tied to a particular receptor. Scientists have known that there was a genetic link between specific smells, like androsterone in male sweat, and particular receptors. But the assumption was that such specificity was the exception rather than the rule. The current study shows that, in fact, almost every thing you smell is triggered by a very specific receptor.
The study also shows how subtle our sense of smell is when compared to our other senses. Smells can alter moods and affect perceptions in ways in which we are rarely aware. Take beets, for example. For a small group of people, beets smell like nothing more than a pile of dirt. They perceive the taste and ‘mouth-feel’ of beets to be one of dirt as well, but the real culprit is the smell. And all of that is caused by a single genetic mutation to one of the olfactory receptors.
So what does that mean for wine drinkers? Well, good news in fact. It means that all those times that your friends went on and on about the subtle flavors of a particular wine, but all you could taste was something that reminded you of the cat pan on a hot day, you weren’t wrong. You can now, officially, blame it on your DNA. Your receptors are set up differently, so you smell the world differently.
It also means there’s no bad choices. Well, mostly there are no bad choices. So don’t feel guilty about enjoying a little cheap plonk. It’s in your DNA.
Five Cats and a Corkscrew 