If we could see smells , what would they wait like ? That ’s the inquiry a mathematical group of scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder are presently endeavor to answer . Scientific Americanreports that fluid mechanist John Crimaldi and his squad of researchers have evolve a fresh method of visualize fragrance using a 50 - foot armoured combat vehicle , 5000 gallons of water , and some high - technical school lasers .
Crimaldi and his team inject a chemical dye called a “ foster odor ” into the tank of water and shine optical maser through it to see what aroma expect like as they move through blank space . As it turn out , scent look like smoke but move in flowing , tentacle - comparable filament . A small tube is used as an artificial nozzle to visualize how our inhalations and exhalations affect the trend of the surrogate smell .
Crimaldi tellsScientific Americanthat visualize scent is just the beginning of a much magnanimous task . Crimaldi and his squad want to calculate out how humans and animals represent out scents and use their sense of smell to pilot . Eventually , Crimaldi even hopes to develop a " smellbot " that can distinguish between dissimilar aroma on its own .
The goal of the labor is to well understand our common sense of odour , one of the more mysterious and less - researched of the senses . But it also has practical implication . Currently , we employ animals to whiff out bomb , drug , and overleap people , often in implausibly dangerous situations . Crimaldi hopes the smellbot could one day exchange the animals and man risking their life to determine dud or uncover the victims of instinctive disasters .
In thePBSNewsHourvideo “ What a Smell Looks Like , ” Nsikan Akpan interviews Crimaldi in his University of Colorado lab . Crimaldi shows off his smell visualiser and explains how sense of smell move through distance . While the smell visualiser is just the first tone in the turgid research undertaking , Crimaldi says it has already change the way scientist understand odor . “ you may see more about this problem from sitting and reckon at something like this than just about anything else , ” he explain . Check it out :
[ h / tScientific American ]
