Does this smell right?

[Eric Walch]

According to some scientists, we don't smell the shape of molecules, but the vibration. (Royal Society of Chemistry)

Humans can smell the difference between ordinary and deuterated organic odorant molecules, according to a new study by researchers in Greece. They found that, provided a sufficiently large number of hydrogen atoms in the molecules are replaced by deuterium, their differing smells are relatively easily detected by most people.

[Selezen]

And just how is this project being funded??

I smell a rat!!

[DaddyHoggy]

I studied Physics - and I was always lead to believe that (in an odd chicken or egg kind of way) that we can only smell because of quantum tunnelling (thus, because we can smell, quantum tunnelling must exist)...

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/short ... es-ne.html

[Selezen]

I was taught that smell is a result of the breakdown of covalent bonds in a compound. Ionic bonds don't smell.

[CommRLock78]

I studied Physics - and I was always lead to believe that (in an odd chicken or egg kind of way) that we can only smell because of quantum tunnelling (thus, because we can smell, quantum tunnelling must exist)...

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/short ... es-ne.html

Reading this got me thinking about the de Broglie wavelength of the molecules .

[DaddyHoggy]

So, rather than "I think, therefore I am"

we could have: "I vibrate, therefore I smell"

[CommRLock78]

...we could have: "I vibrate, therefore I smell"

Hopefully not badly .

[Smivs]

... or just "I stink, therefore I am!"