The Language YOU Speak But Don't UNDERSTAND

Subtitles

You're currently speaking a language,

a language which you don't even

understand. In fact, you might

not even be able to detect it.

But despite this, you speak this

language 24/7. You speak this

language before you're born and

even after you're dead. You never

stop speaking this language until

you cease to exist. This language

is scent. We normally think of

something's scent as smelling

good or bad, or if you have an

even better nose, you may be able

to tell the difference between

things which stink, smell sweet,

sour, minty and other slightly

more complex smells. But there

is so much more to scents than

just these, so much more in fact,

that you can almost consider

it an entire language. You, whether

dead or alive, are constantly

emitting a certain scent, no matter

how much deodorant you put on

this morning. But did you know

that you actually have relatively

fast control over how you smell?

Well, not like whether are not

you stink, but the other scents

you emit. Mainly, your emotional scents.

Compared to most other mammals,

humans have pretty poor olfaction

(or sense of smell), so we never

notice that someone smells different

when they're scared or angry.

Dogs, on the other hand, can

smell these differences because

they have an incredible sense

of smell. Their sense of smell

is so good, in fact, that they

can smell a person from up to

20 kilometers away or detect substances

at concentrations as low as 1

part per trillion. In human terms,

that's like being able to immediately

spot the one dead pixel on the

Las Vegas Sphere's interior screen.

*clears throat* Sorry, in human

terms, that's like being able

to immediately spot the one dead

pixel on one of 3906 Las Vegas

Sphere interior screens. But if

you think that's crazy, just wait

to you hear about silkmoths. Actually,

no need to wait, 'cause I'm gonna

tell you right now. A male silkmoth

can detect certain smells at concentrations

as low as 1 part per 100 quadrillion.

In human terms, that's like being

able to find a needle in a literal

haystack...*clears throat* a haystack

of 14 billion bales or about like

finding the 3 needles I put in

random places somewhere in the

Sahara Desert or like finding

the actual content on this webpage

that I can't even...

But how does smelling even work?

How does something emit a smell

and what is in my nose that allows

me to somehow detect and generally

identify that smell? Well, that

is about as complex a question

as asking me what I'm doing.

To explain it in a somewhat

basic way, an object emits a smell

or odor because it has volatile

organic compounds, or VOCs. These

compounds easily evaporate at

room temperature, hence the term

volatile. Kind of how water evaporates,

except, unlike water, these compounds

are composed of odorous molecules,

causing the compound to smell.

As the compound evaporates, it

releases these odorous molecules

into the air. Then these molecules

bind to receptor proteins extending

from cilia in your nose which

are connected to olfactory receptor neurons.

This causes electrical signals

to travel from the olfactory nerves

to the olfactory bulb which is

part of the olfactory cortex.

The olfactory cortex is the part

of the brain which processes and

interprets smells. The smells

are largely interpreted by associating

them with memories or emotions

which is why some odors can smell

good to one person and bad to another.

It simply depends on what memory

your brain connects the smell to.

We can tell the difference between

smells because of the signals

sent from the olfactory receptors,

such as what combination of signals

were sent. For example, if I showed

you this sequence of red and white

squares, you'd have no idea what it was.

But if we arrange those squares

like this, you can pretty easily

tell what the squares mean. As

you learn more and more sequences

of squares, you will be able to

quickly identify any number or

shape simply by the sequence of squares.

This is basically the same with smell.

At the beginning of your life

you associate certain signals

with certain objects, such as

food, and then you remember these

connections for years, thus allowing

you to determine what a smell is from.

This is really a gross oversimplification

because there is so much more

that this whole smelling process

involves, but I think if I were

to fully explain it, both you

and I would look something like this.

Anyway, smells can be used as

a way of communicating silently

and invisibly. These types of

odors are called pheromones. Many

animals use pheromones to communicate

between each other. Honeybees

release a pheromone when the hive

is in danger, silently summoning

more bees to their aid. Ants release

pheromones to mark paths to food

sources, thus giving a fast, accurate,

and completely invisible message

to the other ants. Even some aquatic

animals use pheromones. Some catfish,

for example, release a pheromone,

when in danger, which alerts

other nearby catfish. It has been

found that humans also release

pheromones or rather emotion and

mood related scents, the question

is, can we detect them? While

we're pretty certain that humans

can't detect them consciously,

it is still unknown if we can

detect them subconsciously. Have

you ever had that feeling that

someone was watching you, but

you couldn't see anyone, and then

later on you find out that there

was in fact someone watching you?

Pheromones and other smells can

travel insane distances. Some

moths release pheromones which

can travel hundreds of meters

possibly even several kilometers

and polar bears can smell seals

from over 30 kilometers away!

What if humans emit odors which

basically send an invisible message

that tells everything going on

in their mind, such as what they're

looking at, and then you subconsciously

detect those odors so that you

can tell that someone is watching you.

Humans can detect around 1 trillion

different smells, more than enough

smells to get a pretty good idea

of what someone is thinking if

thoughts do indeed produce pheromones.

It sounds completely outrageous,

and for the most part it is,

but we technically haven't proven

that this isn't true. Although,

since animals generally can't

tell if you're looking at them,

and they have much better noses

than humans, it's unlikely that

this is the case. That being said,

maybe they just can't interpret

our odors to know what they mean.

I, personally, feel like there

is something that allows you to

subconsciously detect someone's

presence even at a significant

distance, whether that be the

faintest air currents from their

breath, the faintest temperature

change from their body heat, the

faintest electromagnetic wave

from their brain, or the faintest

scents they're releasing.

Whatever the case, the extremely

complex design of our nose and

brain, and really the whole smelling

process, really demonstrates just

how much stuff is happening all

around us and inside us that we

so easily take for granted. From

the polar bear smelling 30 kilometers

away to the silkmoth with its

3 needles in the Sahara Desert

like odor detection, I feel like

my olfactory acuity is very much lacking.

But at least I'm not stuck in

the arctic being seally or stuck

trying to find a moth in the dark

some hundred meters away by smell.