Create white smell

2012/11/22 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biokimika
• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have invented a method to create a neutral smell. The work has been published in the online edition of the journal PNAS, in which the research has been launched with this objective: to achieve a level of smell equivalent to that considered “white” in vision and sound.

To do this, they first defined the characteristics of white colors and sounds. According to them, “whiteness” occurs when both conditions converge for our senses: when the mixture of components encompasses the entire spectrum of stimuli and all the components have the same intensity.Thus, they began to look for odor that fulfilled both conditions. We selected 86 molecules that occupy the entire olfactory spectrum and were diluted for the same intensity. Subsequently mixtures were prepared with different amounts of molecules that were given to volunteers for their smeling.Researchers have found that smells become similar as the number of molecules that do not overlap increases, and that once the mixture reaches 30 molecules, volunteers are not able to identify the smell. It seems to them a neutral, unknown, quite pleasant and “edible” odour mixture. In addition, researchers have shown that this effect does not appear with mixtures of less than 30 molecules or if the molecules do not encompass the entire spectro.Therefore, to obtain a white odor it is enough to mix 30 or more molecules of the same intensity that encompass the entire spectrum. Hence it follows that in smell the structure of the mixture is more important than the nature of the molecules. Finally, they have not ruled out that in nature appear white smells, colors and white sounds.