The Extraordinary Sense of Smell

By Jennifer Wardell

It's Valentine's Day. You wake up to the smell of bacon and pancakes.  You can smell roses in the room.  Everything has a smell and these smells cause different feelings.  You're now happy to have breakfast being cooked for you and you start to feel hungry.  The roses make you reminiscent of all of the past years and all the times you have gotten flowers.  All of your senses are attached and the smell of something can trigger all types of emotions, especially for women.

A recent study in Rio de Janeiro tried to figure out the reason behind why women have a better sense of smell than men do.  They examined post-mortem brains of both males and females and found that females have up to 50% more olfactory neurons.  This finding does not prove that women have a superior sense of smell, but it does provide some support for the hypothesis.  


In general, larger brains with more neurons lead to more complexity, so it makes sense if women have more olfactory bulbs that they will have more olfactory sensitivity.  It is also true that the brain does not accumulate many more cells as we grow, meaning that women are born with these extra cells.  There are multiple theories for why women would have this stronger sense of smell, but at this time none have been proven.  Possible ideas include that it would help with motherhood or choosing an ideal mate.

So next time you smell something really good, think about all of the times you have smelled it before and be thankful for your sense of smell.  Think about smells from your childhood, from previous cities where you have lived, both good and bad smells.  Think about how awesome it would be if Google Nose really was a real thing instead of an April Fool's Joke.  The sense of smell is a gift to everyone, not just women, and we should all be thankful for it.