Hundreds of billions of molecules with odors exist. If you want to create a particular scent or flavor, say char-grilled beef, rose petals or freshly baked bread, you’d need to screen thousands or millions of compounds to match what you were looking for. It would take thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars in human testing.

An Arizona State University scientist helped create an algorithm that winnows down 99 percent of that workload.

— Read more at ASU scientist helps make scents of it all at Arizona State University.