Did you know that humans have actually excellent olfactory abilities?

 

The idea that humans have a poor sense of smell derives from the anatomical observations of the famous neuroanatomist Paul Broca. Broca classified human as "nonsmellers" because he observed that, when compared to other animals, humans developed larger frontal lobes at the expense of the olfactory system.

John P. McGann, in his review published in Science this year "Poor human olfaction is a 19th-century myth", advocates the idea that the "human olfactory bulb is actually quite large in absolute terms and contains a similar number of neurons to that of other mammals". Indeed, olfactory testings have shown that humans can detect and discriminate odors at the same levels, and sometimes even better, than rodents and dogs.

On this new perspective, it is even more important to understand the impact of odors on our lives.