WEBVTT - How Scientists Are Reviving Lost Smells 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.559 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:12.320 and iHeartRadio. Guess what will? 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:14.240 What's that mango mug? 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:15.560 You smell that mug? 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.479 Mug like a mug of coffee or hot chocolate or 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.000 something like that. No, just like pure mug. Can't you 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.960 smell that? It's like such a strong mug. I'm not 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.520 sure what's happening here. I can't smell just an empty 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:30.120 ceramic mug, can you? 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.159 Of course, this place is fragrant with mug right now. 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.640 I don't know that I've ever smelled mug. What's wrong 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:38.920 with me? 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.680 So nothing? Everyone smells different stuff. It turns out our 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.680 sense of smell is so complex that there's about a 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.360 thirty percent difference between what I smell, which is mug, 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.159 and what you smell, which is nothing right now. But 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.320 on top of that, new sensor being introduced into our 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.880 environment all the time, and other sensor disappearing. 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.160 What do you mean, sensor disappearing like going extinct or something. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:07.240 Yeah, sometimes there are flowers that don't exist anymore. Civilization evolves, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.600 but the case of the disappearing sense is a little 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.240 more complicated. And that's something I thought we could tackle today. 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.759 I love it. I find that super interesting. So let's 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:40.360 dig in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.720 I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.760 good friend Mangesha Ticketer and sitting behind that great big booth. 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.640 Oh wow, I was wondering what he was going to 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.080 do there. So for all of our listeners, we have 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.279 this gigantic whiteboard that rotates. You know, I can flip 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.440 to the other side. And usually Dylan is pretty humble 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.800 and sort of subtle about what he does, but I 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.200 could tell he was very excited, and right as I 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.560 went into this, he flipped the board and there is 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:13.680 the most accurate, anatomically drawn picture of a note. I mean, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:19.560 we were talking brazen natural that artist or medical student, no, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:21.880 and that big of a show off. He was really 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.959 in this for the big reveal. But anyway, let's dive 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.639 in mango. What can you tell me about disappearing smells? 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.920 Let's get right into it. To understand why certain smells 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.160 have disappeared, we need a little primer on the science 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.360 of smell because it is super complex. So let's compare 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.359 smell to the way we see light. Scientists figured out 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.640 in the nineteenth century that all the varied hues from 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.960 red to violet are produced by just three types of 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.240 receptors in human retinas. But the nose, or rather the 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.239 clump of sensory neurons that are high inside your nostrils, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:02.839 boasts about four hundred receptors, which is obviously way more complex. 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.400 In two thousand and four, Richard Axel and Linda Buck 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.800 were award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.000 discovering that on these receptors there are genes that encode them, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.160 and these genes sit on top of specialized neurons which 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:22.240 shoot information down leggy axons into the brain, eventually landing 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.640 on one of two olfactory bulbs. And this is where 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.960 the smells are processed. But here's the thing, we don't 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.720 actually know which smells those receptors recognize. All right, So 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.280 I'm scribbling down some notes here. You know, I'm a 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.840 pretty good note taker. So I've got hundreds of receptors 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:44.200 responding to some smells, driven by genetic encoding that sends 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.200 those smells down into the old factory bulbs in your brain. 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.320 All so you can go, mmmm, saffron, I get that. 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.360 Right, Yeah, especially the saffron part. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.160 But nailed it. On top of how your. 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.600 Brain receives this information, you know, the input of smells 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:04.240 is much more complex than light. Light is electromagnetic radiation, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.800 and the same three colored receptors can combine to process 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.880 a range of wavelengths covering the entire rainbow of visible light. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.920 But smells aren't wavelengths, and they aren't coasting along a 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.920 smooth spectrum. They have all a complex mix of chemical particles, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.520 all kind of bobbing around in the air. So, in fact, 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.279 there's this twenty fourteen paper, it was in the journal 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.800 Science where researchers at Rockefeller University estimated that humans can distinguish, 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.440 give or take at least a trillion distinct smells on 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:39.159 planet Earth. Plus all those odor receptors have lots of variants, 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.040 like some of them are less sensitive or fully nonfunctional 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.680 in large chunks of the population. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.479 Which is whise you were talking about. I guess you 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.640 and I have about thirty percent variation between what we 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.320 can each smell, Like some of my receptors are more 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.440 sensitive than yours and vice versa. 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.680 Right, So maybe you walk around smelling all sorts of 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.239 stuff that I've never smelled, but you know, additionally, there 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.159 seem to be about six hundred smell pseudogenes. 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.960 Wait, so what's a pseudogene? I mean, I fully know 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.360 what a pseudogene is, but I mean for our listeners, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.120 what can you tell them what a pseudogene? 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.280 You're right, you had that pseudogen poster over your bed 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.040 in college. But where listeners? A pseudogene is a non 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:23.200 functional segment of DNA that resembles functional genes, and scientists 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.120 think that they are about six hundred smell pseudogenes that 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.599 don't code for working receptors in anybody alive today. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.839 Oh wow, so it means they just don't work or what? 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.039 Yeah? So some researchers take this chunk of dormant DNA 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.240 as evidence of the noses terminal decline. But basically the 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.159 theory is that we used to be able to smell 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:43.960 stuff that we can't smell anymore. 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.480 That is so interesting, And is this nasal decline something 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.320 we should be worried about as a species. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:51.880 I don't think so. I mean, we aren't the only 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:56.080 species that this has happened to. Bottlenosed dolphins and whales 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.160 give up a lot of their sense of smell long ago, 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.160 possibly to free up headspace for echolocation. 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.040 Huh. I mean, but those are both underwater creature. So 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.719 why do you think we're losing our precious sense of smell? 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.200 Well, I mean there could be a couple of reasons. 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.159 One is evolution, right, like our sense of smell started 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.920 roding when we changed the way we select our mates 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:20.159 and prioritizing other factors above scent. That's not tracking for 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.960 me because that's actually how I chose my wife, But 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.920 either way, go on, Okay. Well, the second is pollution. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.719 So basically, pollution particles can pass through the olfactory bulb 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:34.159 and directly into the brain, causing inflammation. In twenty sixteen, 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.479 a team of British researchers found that tiny metal particles 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.720 in human brain tissue have appeared to have passed through 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.359 the ol factory bulb, which is you know, it's obviously scary. 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.360 Yeah, yeah, you know. One thing I was thinking about 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.160 just the other day that it's the fact that we 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.080 sort of all took the sense of smell for granted 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:52.320 until COVID. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.360 Yeah, it's true. I mean, obviously there are like chunks 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.479 of the population who don't have a sense of smell, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.080 but COVID definitely made that concern more mean stream And 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.520 you know this happened to me, like I used to 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.000 have a much better sense of smell until I had COVID, 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.360 and then I haven't fully gotten it back. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.200 M M, yeah, I remember pre COVID used to be 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.400 a much better three point shooter. I think something about 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.360 COVID just really yeah, gotcha there. But it's so weird, 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.480 like we experienced so much through smell, and until you 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.000 lose that sense, you kind of take it for granted. 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.640 And of course everyone knows smells play a much bigger 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.120 role in triggering memories, sort of like Prousd with his part. 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:31.640 You know, I was going to say madelines, but sure 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.360 is passing gas too. But when you were talking about 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.240 sinse that have disappeared, I was thinking about how they're 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.240 scientists actually trying to recreate smells from the past. But 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:54.800 before we get into that, let's take a quick break. 0:07:58.000 --> 0:07:59.960 Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.000 disappearing sense. So will Before the break, you were telling 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.080 us about how scientists have begun to recreate scents from 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:10.280 the past using biomolecular tech, which you know, sounds fascinating. 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.800 It really is, all right. So most smells stem from 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.480 biological materials. You've got plants, foods, human, animal bodies, all 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.440 sorts of biological materials like that, and they decay rapidly, 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.360 evaporate into the air, and once the source of the 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.520 smell is gone, the smell has disappeared. But if they 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:33.080 are imperceptible biomolecular residues left on these items from the past, 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.880 you think of things like incense burners or perfume bottles, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.240 cooking pots, food stores, jars, all sorts of things like this. 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.520 Scientists can use chromatography to basically decode the smells, and 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.360 one German researcher has used some of these residues from 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.920 archaeological artifacts to reconstruct the scent of a five thousand 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.520 year old oasis. This was in Saudi Arabia. It's so interesting. 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.320 That's amazing. But I want to walk us through what 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:00.800 chromatogus actually. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.840 I feel like you should explain it, Mango, because I 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.240 know what a huge chromatography head you are, so this 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:06.160 is all you. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.040 I mean, I did do a lot of chromatography and 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.959 gel electrophoresis and stuff like that. When you know, I 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.360 worked in a university lab in high school. But it's 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:16.600 been it's been a while. 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.440 Yeah, it's been been a minute. But simply put, chromatography 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.520 is a process for separating components in a mixture, combined 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.720 with mass spectrometry, which can detect different compounds. By calculating 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:33.320 the weight of different molecules, scientists can essentially reverse engineer 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:35.880 the way a perfume smelled, and they do this by 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:37.960 using the molecules left in the bottle. 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.280 So then you could like potentially buy a perfume and 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:43.679 smell like an ancient. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.120 Egyptian, not just any ancient Egyptian, you could actually smell 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:48.880 like Cleopatra herself. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.040 What that's insane? 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:53.959 Yeah, I know. Cleopatra wore a perfume called mendagean and 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.559 sometimes referred to as the chanelle number five of ancient Egypt. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:03.480 And amazingly, the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and documents describe recipes 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.960 for several perfumes, including this one, but the precise ingredients 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.840 and preparation methods those aren't quite as well known. So 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.360 this egyptologist named Dora Goldsmith and a historian of Greco 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.720 Roman philosophy and science named Sean Coughlin they started experimenting 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.480 with the ingredients. They were looking at things like desert 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:27.680 dat oil, mr cinnamon pine resin, and they eventually produced 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.680 the scent that they suspect approximates what Cleopatra wore. Is 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:36.079 this very strong, but pleasant, long lasting blend of spiciness 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.840 and sweetness. Apparently, it's pretty cool they were able to recreate. 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.800 This, which you know, is fascinating, but it sounds a 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.160 little more like trial and error of using a recipe 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.000 rather than just going back to the molecules, right. 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.720 Yeah, I mean there are two distinct methods. The EU 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.640 funded project ODOROPA puts it like this, if you're working 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.200 from a historical recipe, as the Cleopatric perfume people did 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:04.680 recreating a scent, now, if you're using chemical analysis techniques 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:09.240 of actual ancient scent molecules, you are then quote reconstructing it. 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:14.520 So researchers at ODOROPA have even created this heritage smell 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:19.600 library that documents historically significant smells. Oh wow, they've yeah, 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.400 they've reproduced the smell of the library at Saint Paul's 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.560 Cathedral in London of potpourri from the seventeen fifties and 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.880 even Royal car p five. 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.839 B Royal car P. Five B. What is that? 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.320 That would be the car used by Queen Elizabeth the second. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.160 So they were able to reconstruct the smellscape of the 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.600 interior based on this analytical data. 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.080 That is so weird. I really hope that long after 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.480 I'm dead, no one tries to reconstruct the scent of 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:47.840 our prius. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:48.400 Because that would be all. 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:53.800 But how exactly do they capture these, you know, historic scents. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.319 Well, according to this one researcher, Cecilia Bimbibra, she uses 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.600 a method called the headspace technie where she places an 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.680 object inside a clean sealed bag, has this valve on it, 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.000 and then they seal the volatile organic compounds. These are 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.840 the things that actually make up the odor. Then she 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.480 inserts an absorbent carbon fiber into the valve to soak 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.400 up the ambient compounds that have been isolated inside, and 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.080 once the carbon fiber is all loaded up with organic compounds, 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.880 she runs it through a gas chromatographer. In the end, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.160 it gives her this sort of electocardiogram, but really more 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.760 for smells, I guess, which she can use to identify 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:35.640 the various chemicals in a smell. 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:38.920 I feel like you just have like a word salad 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:43.400 of scientific words. But it is it sounds pretty amazing. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.679 One day you'll understand it's pretty complicated. 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.600 It is also wild to learn about, like the very 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.840 precise and almost like clinical process of unpacking what is 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.000 such a human experience, right like, because you know you 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.200 said it before, smell is so emotional and whether it's 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.640 pheromones or childhood memories or just the way home smells, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.840 right like, these are very human experiences. And you know, 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:11.640 one of the things I thought was fascinating was I 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:16.160 found this study from twenty twelve where two researchers interviewed 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:20.200 thirty residents of Krakow in Poland, and they were all 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.120 old enough to remember the transition in nineteen eighty nine 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.400 out of communism, and they tracked that transition with the 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.240 smell of their neighbors cooking. Like the smell showed them 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:34.240 the degree to which they lacked privacy in these socialist flats, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.720 and that all changed in the transition to capitalism. This 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:40.520 was kind of mind blowing to be in the nineteen 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:45.360 forties Russians distanced themselves from capitalist America through smell. It 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.040 was like one of the propaganda things and communists felt 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.760 that they were living in a fragrant world where everything smells, 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.280 while Americans only experienced land sterile air. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.720 Wow. So I guess capitalism literally smells different than socialism. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.840 Yeah, which actually makes sense, right. So think about how 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.480 different cities have a smell, like these potpourries of everything 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.600 that contributes to that city's culture. Like there's a distinct 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.199 smell when you land in Beijing. I know when I've 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.280 been to Bangalore, like in the monsoons, there's a distinct 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.720 smell there and it immediately evokes certain memories. America has 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.080 this too. I was talking to a friend who was 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.080 telling me how the Denver airport has this distinct smell 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.680 to her, and so does the Path train in New York. 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.800 But what's interesting is that some cities and countries are 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.840 actually making an effort to recognize the value of their odors. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.480 So in two thousand and one, Japan's environment minister classified 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.400 the country's top one hundred best smelling spots, which ran 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.120 the gamut from hedges to grill deal. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.200 I'd actually love to see this list, and it definitely 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.600 makes sense for a country that prides itself on stopping 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.200 to smell the scent of nature and forest bathing. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.040 Yeah, but Japan isn't the only one. In istanbul Coach 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:02.600 University's Research Center for Anatolian'sviations has opened an exhibition called 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.760 Sense in the City to explore four thousand years of 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:07.720 civilization through its smells. 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.320 There is something just so cool about the fact that 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.080 you can land in another country, take this deep sniff 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:14.760 and go yep, that's Athens. 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.000 Yeah, it's a huge component of travel experience. There's this 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.560 professor from Goldsmith's University, Alex Rhees Taylor, who specializes in 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:28.600 multisensory experience of urban space, and he says, quote, you 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.960 can learn a lot about a city's economy, a lot 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.960 about its culture through the sense of smell. But he 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.800 also says that a lot of those specific smells are 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.800 starting to disappear and are being replaced by what he 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.760 calls a transnational aroma scape. And he goes on to 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.520 say this, it is pretty much the same in every 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:51.320 global city now. Smells of pulled pork, flat whites, roasting 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.080 coffee beans is an increasing one, and microbreweries. There's a 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.600 global constellation of transnational aromas and flavors associated with transnational 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.720 class people that move around from city to city. 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.080 I guess that's the smell of globalization. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.920 Yeah, kind of like the macdonalization of culture. 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.320 Yeah. Well, there's this community hell belief that the modern 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.920 era has been one of deodorization, that is, the belief 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.000 that we've gotten less smelly the more that we advance. Sure, 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.880 but what's interesting is that this isn't entirely true. So 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.680 first of all, we've been dividing and judging people on 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.360 the basis of smell for centuries. Socrates thought that slaves 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.160 smelled differently and that the use of perfumes threatened to 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.360 confuse the ability to tell them apart from free men. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.480 That is so weird. I feel like the more you 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.880 learn about so creates less cool. He seems to be. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.120 Yeah, good callback to Bill and Ted there. And it 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.480 can start to get pretty discriminatory, as you pointed out, 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.640 with kind of racists and colonial ideas that actually aren't accurate. 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:53.840 Historian Mark Jenner has written how when society has quote 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.920 deodorized ourselves to an extent, we've swapped one set of 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.440 smells for another, like fabriz plugins in every bathroom, or 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.840 hospitals smelling like bleach, those kinds of things. 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.560 Yeah, or like pine trees hanging in every uber. But right, 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.159 you know, back to what you were saying before. Because 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:15.000 smell is so emotional and really so cultural, it can 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.000 actually have a lot to do with power. So in 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.199 the early twentieth century along the California coast, there was 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:25.440 an odor of squid and sardines that really polarized opinion. 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.879 The tourism industry thought this fishy smell was intolerable, but 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.439 you know, the fishing industry just considered it this minor 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.840 note in the smellscape of modern ray and environmental historians 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.000 look at examples like this to see how conflicting interpretations 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.240 of the same smell tend to be adjudicated according to 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:45.520 who has more power. 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.600 I was thinking about that. Speaking of power, remember at 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:51.840 the beginning of the episode, you were actually talking about 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.399 how there are organic materials that are disappearing so their 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.240 sense will be extinct soon. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.600 Yeah that was a long time ago, but yes, I 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:01.239 remember that. 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.840 Yeah. Yeah. Well there's this one smell in particular that 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.560 is extremely sought after by hot, rich people and it's 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:09.479 called ood. 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.480 Oh I know oud, but not because I'm rich or hot, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:14.720 I just like colones. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.960 Well then you probably also know that ood is in 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.320 a lot of luxury fragrances from brands like tom Ford, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.440 Christian Dior, Joe Malone. But real ood comes from the 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:28.800 resin of wild agerwood trees. 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.200 Oh, I had no idea where the sun came from. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.120 Yeah, and apparently those trees are under serious threat from 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:39.080 over harvesting kilo for kilo, ood is actually more costly 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.800 than gold. And as wild harvesting has been banned in 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.800 Thailand and other South Asian countries, this is where the 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.719 agerwood trees grow. There's been a boom in plantations growing 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.720 cultivated agerwood. But cultivated ood just isn't that good because 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.719 it tends to get harvested when the trees are between 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.720 five and ten years old. And generally speaking, good ood 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.080 you want to let the trees cook for really about 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.119 one hundred years, so a lot lot longer. 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.639 Yeah, I let that ood cook. But that's right. But 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.520 you know, Wil, there actually is precedent for recreating sense 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:14.640 from extinct plants. 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:16.960 Well, that is super interesting and I want to get 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:18.879 into that. But before we do that, let's take a 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:35.280 quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius. We're talking 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.680 about disappearing sense, all right, Mango you were just about 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.560 to tell us about scientists recreating scents and smells from 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:44.040 extinct plants. 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.640 I mean, the whole idea of this is really cool 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:49.760 to me. But actually, do you remember in college I 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.360 had an extra science credit I needed to take, and 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.680 I was looking through the options and I almost took 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.760 organic chemistry because you know, one of the things that 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.399 said in the pathlet was that you could learned to 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.639 create the scent of pairs and a lab. I really 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:04.119 love that. 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.240 I love that that was like the reason you were 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.800 going to take what was probably known as like the 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.320 hardest weed out class in all of college. It would 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:14.760 have been a disaster, I know. 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:16.760 And actually you're the one who convinced me not to 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:22.160 do it because I hate chemistry, but the curiosity about 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:23.840 how to make sense and a level almost tricked me 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.000 into hating my senior year. But I hear you, let's 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:31.159 talk about these extinct flowers. So in twenty sixteen, a 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.160 team of biologists, researchers, and artists embarked on a project 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.840 called Resurrecting the Sublime, and using tiny amounts of DNA 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:44.120 extracted from specimen of three flowers. A team of scientists 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.360 used synthetic biology to predict and resynthesize the gene sequences 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.639 that could encode for fragrance producing enzymes and then using 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:57.600 those findings, this smell researcher and artist named Cisel Tolas 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.240 used her expertise to reconstruct the flowers smells in the 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.680 lab and she used identical or comparative smell molecules. 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.520 Some guys, since she's like one of these super smellers 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.800 that helped create perfumes. But what were the extinct flowers? 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.160 Yeah, she's a nose like that's what they're called. But yeah, 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.960 I'm gonna murder the pronunciation of these flowers, but bear 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:27.000 with me. The Hibiscadelphus wilderaneus or maui howk haiwaii? 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:28.760 Yeah, you murdered it. 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:33.280 It's the plant's habitat was decimated by colonial cattle ranching 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.000 and the final tree was found dying in nineteen twelve. 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.119 And then the second flower was the falls of the 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.600 Ohio scurf pee, which was last seen in eighteen eighty 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.120 one on Rock Island on the Ohio River. And then 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:49.159 there's Windberg cone bush, which sounds like a person but 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.320 it's actually a flower and it was last described in 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.560 London in a collector's garden in eighteen oh five, and 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.879 its habitat in Cape Town, South Africa was already lost 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.200 to colonial vine, so you know it had disappeared there 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:03.920 and then was preserved in London for a bit. 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:06.520 Yeah, I mean, I do think it'd be so amazing 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.399 to smell extinct flowers, but I guess you'd have to 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:11.520 go to a lab where they recreated them. It's not 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.560 like you can, you know, send off these smells or anything. 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.080 Yeah, I mean there's something amazing about like the idea 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.440 of smelling a new scent, right, Like it's like seeing 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:22.760 a new color or something. It just feels unimaginable. But 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.879 you know, the idea of sending smells is pretty fascinating. 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.760 In twenty fourteen, a Harvard professor named David Edwards and 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:34.639 one of his students, Rachel Field, invented a prototype called 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.200 the OPhone, which was designed to let people send smells 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:39.440 like text messages. 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:41.800 WHOA, so, how does that even work? 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.400 Well? The phone had a lot of moving parts. There 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.159