Theory of Smell Fails Sniff Test
By ANDREW BRIDGES
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A controversial theory of smell celebrated in a recent book that engaged the reading public but enraged scientists fails the sniff test, said researchers unable to find any evidence to support it.
Human experiments failed to produce results that would suggest the so-called “vibration theory” of smell can explain the last of the five senses to be unraveled by science. Details appeared Sunday on the Web site of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
“We didn’t disprove the vibration theory. We just didn’t find anything to support it,” said study co-author Leslie Vosshall.
Vibration theory, first proposed in the 1930s, suggests the nose interprets odors by sensing the molecular vibrations of whatever chemical it sniffs. Many scientists discredit the idea and instead believe the shape of a molecule determines its scent. That theory also remains unproven.
Vibration theory received a splashy boost in 2002, with the publication of Chandler Burr’s “The Emperor of Scent.” The popular and widely reviewed book triumphed the work of biophysicist and scent expert Luca Turin’s struggle to have vibration theory accepted by mainstream scientists.
Vosshall and colleague Andreas Keller, both of Rockefeller University in New York, published their study only because of “the extraordinary – and inappropriate – degree of publicity that the theory has received from uncritical journalists,” according to a Nature Neuroscience editorial accompanying the study.
The study relies on three smell tests carried out with several dozen human subjects. The subjects were asked to sniff a variety of chemicals to determine in part whether molecules of different vibrational frequencies could be distinguished on the basis of their scents. The results instead were consistent with the shape theory of smell, the authors said.
Turin, in a telephone interview, stood by vibration theory and scoffed at the new study, saying it “tells you more about the subjects tested than the truth of the assertion.”
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