Sharpee and her colleagues analyzed odor molecules found in four familiar and unmistakable scents: strawberries, tomatoes, blueberries and mouse urine. The researchers calculated how often and in what concentrations certain molecules turned up together in these scents. They then created a mathematical model in which molecules that occurred together frequently were represented as closer in space and molecules that rarely did so were farther apart. The result was a “saddle”-shaped surface—a hallmark of a field called hyperbolic geometry, which obeys different rules from the geometry most people learn in school.
— Tatyana Sharpee is a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. She and her colleagues are working on ways to map odors. Read more at Unraveling the Mathematics of Smell at Scientific American, or see the research paper at Hyperbolic geometry of the olfactory space at Science Advances.
Can’t say I’m familiar with mouse urine.
THANK you, glad I was not the only one to say *what*? Mouse urine?
I did too, especially coming on the heels of strawberries, tomatoes, and blueberries. I would have expected the fourth thing to be maybe bananas or pineapple. Now I do have to admit that I AM familiar with the smell of cat urine.
Right! Or even grass, hay, ozone, cinnamon, something like? Mouse urine was unexpected.
Unfortunately, I *am* familiar with the smell of mouse urine, thanks to one place that I worked at. It’s really nasty.
Not going to think about that 🙂
Cool! Perfume science ftw!