WEBVTT - How Scientists are Reviving Lost Smells 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.519 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.720 --> 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 --> 0:00:19.480 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 --> 0:00:25.959 smell that? It's like such a strong mug. I'm not 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.560 sure what's happening here. I can't smell just an empty 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:30.120 ceramic mug, can you? 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.159 Of course, this place is fragrant with mug right now. 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.680 I don't know that I've ever smelled mug. What's wrong 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.360 with me? So nothing? Everyone smells different stuff. It turns 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.280 out our sense of smell is so complex that there's 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.800 about a thirty percent difference between what I smell, which 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.960 is mug, and what you smell, which is nothing right now. 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.200 But on top of that, new sensor being introduced into 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.880 our environment all the time, and other sensor disappearing. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.200 What do you mean, sensor disappearing like going extinct or something. 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:07.280 Yeah, sometimes there are flowers that don't exist anymore. Civilization evolves, 0:01:07.319 --> 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 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:40.360 dig in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.760 I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.000 good friend Mangesh Shot Ticketer and sitting behind that great 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.360 big booth. Oh wow, I was wondering what he was 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:50.120 going to do there. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.280 So for all of our listeners, we have this gigantic 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.600 whiteboard that rotates. You know, I can flip to the 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.840 other side. And usually Dylan is pretty humble and sort 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.280 of subtle about what he does, but I could tell 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.040 he was very excited, and right as I went into this, 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.120 he flipped the board and there is the most accurate, 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.440 anatomically drawn picture of a note. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:14.120 I mean, we were. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:18.600 Talking brazen artist or medical student. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.040 No, and that big of a show off. 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.400 He was really in this for the big reveal. But anyway, 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.440 let's dive in mango. What can you tell me about 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.200 disappearing smells? Let's get right into it. To understand why 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.480 certain smells have disappeared, we need a little primer on 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.320 the science of smell because it is super complex. So 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.800 let's compare smell to the way we see light. Scientists 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.800 figured out in the nineteenth century that all the varied 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.480 hues from red to violet are produced by just three 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.440 types of receptors in human retinas. But the nose, or 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.400 rather the clump of sensory neurons that are high inside 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:01.400 your nostrils, boasts about four hundred receptors, which is obviously 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.400 way more complex. In two thousand and four, Richard Axel 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.919 and Linda Buck were award the Nobel Prize in Physiology 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.720 or Medicine for discovering that on these receptors there are 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.680 genes that encode them, and these genes sit on top 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:20.560 of specialized neurons which shoot information down leggy axons into 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.760 the brain, eventually landing on one of two olfactory bulbs. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.640 And this is where the smells are processed. But here's 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:32.400 the thing, we don't actually know which smells those receptors recognize. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.040 All right, So I'm scribbling down some notes here. You know, 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.040 I'm a pretty good note taker. So I've got hundreds 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:43.080 of receptors responding to some smells, driven by genetic encoding 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.280 that sends those smells down into the old factory bulbs 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.240 in your brain. All so you can go, mmmm, saffron, 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:51.240 Did I get that? 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.360 Right, Yeah, especially the saffron part. 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:54.600 But nailed it. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.320 On top of how your brain receives this information, you know, 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.640 the input of smells is much more complex than light. 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.680 Light is electromagnetic radiation, and the same three colored receptors 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.080 can combine to process a range of wavelengths covering the 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.280 entire rainbow of visible light. But smells aren't wavelengths, and 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.720 they aren't coasting along a smooth spectrum. They evolve a 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.880 complex mix of chemical particles, all kind of bobbing around 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.400 in the air. So, in fact, there's this twenty fourteen paper, 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.320 it was in the journal Science where researchers at Rockefeller 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.960 University estimated that humans can distinguish, give or take at 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.640 least a trillion distinct smells on planet Earth. Plus all 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.960 those odor receptors have lots of variants, like some of 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.800 them are less sensitive or fully non functional in large 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:45.760 chunks of the population. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.440 Which is wise 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 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.360 can each smell, Like some of my receptors are more 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.400 sensitive than yours and vice versa. 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.680 Right, So maybe you walk around smelling all sorts of 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.240 stuff that I've never smelled. But you know, additionally, there 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.160 seem to be about six hundred smell pseudogenes. 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.960 Wait, so what's a pseudogene? I mean, I fully know 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.359 what a pseudo gene is, but I mean, for our listeners, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.120 what can you tell them what a pseudogene? 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.120 You're right, you had that pseudogen poster over youre at 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.440 bed in college. But it's for our listeners. A pseudogene 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.719 is a non functional segment of DNA that resembles functional genes, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.159 and scientists think that there are about six hundred smell 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.599 pseudogenes that 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 --> 0:05:42.200 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 --> 0:05:49.359 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 --> 0:05:58.240 gave up a lot of their sense of smell long ago, 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.200 possibly to free up headspace for echolocation. 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.039 Huh. I mean, but those are both underwater creature. So 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.719 why do you think we're losing our precious sense of smell? 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.240 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 --> 0:06:15.960 roding when we changed the way we select our mates 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.760 and prioritizing other factors above scent. 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.599 That's not tracking for me because that's actually how I 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.640 chose my wife, But either way, go on, Okay. 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.040 Well, the second is pollution. So basically, pollution particles can 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.200 pass through the olfactory bulb and directly into the brain, 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:35.640 causing inflammation. In twenty sixteen, a team of British researchers 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.120 found that tiny metal particles in human brain tissue have 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.320 appeared to have passed through the ol factory bulb, which 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.359 is you know, it's obviously scary. 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.400 Yeah, yeah, you know. One thing I was thinking about 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.200 just the other day that it's the fact that we 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.160 sort of all took the sense of smell for granted 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:52.320 until COVID. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.400 Yeah, it's true. I mean, obviously there are like chunks 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.520 of the population who don't have a sense of smell, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.120 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 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.040 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 --> 0:07:09.240 M M, yeah, I remember pre COVID used to be 0:07:09.279 --> 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, 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.480 like we experienced so much through smell, and until you 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.000 lose that sense, you kind of take it for granted. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.680 And of course everyone knows smells play a much bigger 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.160 role in triggering memories, sort of like PRUSD with his part. 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:31.240 You know, I was going to say madelines, but but 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.160 sure is passing gas too. But when you were talking 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.040 about sinse that have disappeared, I was thinking about how 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.920 they're scientists actually trying to recreate smells from the past. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:54.880 But before we get into that, let's take a quick break. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.960 Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking about 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.080 disappearing sense. So will. Before the break, you were telling 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.040 us about how scientists have begun to recreate scents from 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:10.840 the past using biomolecular tech, which you know sounds fascinating. 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.760 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, 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.360 evaporate into the air, and once the source of the 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.520 smell is gone, the smell has disappeared. But if they 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:33.120 are imperceptible biomolecular residues left on these items from the past, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.920 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. 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.520 Scientists can use chromatography to basically decode the smells, and 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.360 one German researcher has used some of these residues from 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.959 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 chromatography is actually. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.840 I feel like you should explain it, Manga, because I 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.240 know what a huge chromatography head you are, so this 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:06.160 is all you. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.079 I mean. I did do a lot of chromatography and 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.000 gel electrophoresis and stuff like that. When you know, I 0:09:13.040 --> 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 --> 0:09:20.439 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 --> 0:09:28.760 with mass spectrometry, which can detect different compounds. By calculating 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:33.360 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 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.000 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 --> 0:09:43.920 smell like an ancient Egyptian. 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.280 Not just any ancient Egyptian, you could actually smell like 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:48.880 Cleopatra herself. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.080 What that's insane? 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.000 Yeah, I know. Cleopatra wore a perfume called mendagean and 0:09:54.080 --> 0:10:00.000 sometimes referred to as the chanelle number five of ancient Egypt. Amazingly, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.959 the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and documents describe recipes for several perfumes, 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:09.400 including this one, but the precise ingredients and preparation methods 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.240 those aren't quite as well known. So this Egyptologist named 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.800 Dora Goldsmith, and a historian of Greco Roman philosophy and science, 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.000 named Sean Coughlin. They started experimenting with the ingredients. They 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.840 were looking at things like desert date oil, myrr cinnamon 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.360 pine resin, and they eventually produced the scent that they 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.640 suspect approximates what Cleopatrick wore. Is this very strong, but pleasant, 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.120 long lasting blend of spiciness and sweetness. Apparently, it's pretty 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:39.920 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 --> 0:10:45.200 little more like trial and error of using a recipe 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.600 rather than just going back to the molecules. 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.440 Right, yeah, I mean there are two distinct methods. The 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.319 EU funded project ODOROPA puts it like this, if you're 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.240 working from a historical recipe, as the Cleopatrick perfume people did, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.160 quote recreating a scent. Now, if you're using chemical analysis 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.080 techniques of actual ancient scent molecules, you are then quote 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:13.560 reconstructing it. So researchers at ODOROPA have even created this 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.840 heritage smell library that documents historically significant smells. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:18.320 Oh wow. 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.800 They yeah, they've reproduced the smell of the library at 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.520 Saint Paul's Cathedral in London of potpourri from the seventeen 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.800 fifties and even Royal Car P five B. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.839 Royal Car P five B what is that? 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.360 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 --> 0:11:40.640 interior based on this analytical data. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.080 That is so weird. I really hope that long after 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.520 I'm dead, no one tries to reconstruct the scent of 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:50.559 our prius because that would be all. But how exactly 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.800 do they capture these, you know, historic scents. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.280 Well, according to this one researcher, Cecilia Bimbibra, she uses 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.600 a method called the headspace technic where she places an 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.720 object inside a clean sealed bag, has this valve on it, 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.040 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 --> 0:12:37.280 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 --> 0:12:43.440 of scientific words. But it is it sounds pretty amazing. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.719 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 --> 0:12:53.880 precise and almost like clinical process of unpacking what is 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.040 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 --> 0:13:16.199 found this study from twenty twelve where two researchers interviewed 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:20.200 thirty residents of Krakow in Poland, and they were all 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.080 old enough to remember the transition in nineteen eighty nine 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.439 out of communism, and they tracked that transition with the 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.240 smell of their neighbors cooking. Like the smell showed them 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.240 the degree to which they lacked privacy in these socialist flats, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.760 and that all changed in the transition to capitalism. This 0:13:38.880 --> 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 --> 0:13:51.800 that they were living in a fragrant world where everything smells, 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:55.319 while Americans only experienced land sterile air. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.440 Wow. So I guess capitalism literally smells different than socialism. Yeah, 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:01.360 which actually. 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.720 Makes sense, right. So think about how different cities have 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.480 a smell, like these potpourries of everything that contributes to 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.320 that city's culture. Like there's a distinct smell when you 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.280 land in Beijing. I know when I've been to Bangalore, 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.880 like in the monsoons, there's a distinct smell there and 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.120 it immediately evokes certain memories. America has this too. I 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:22.640 was talking to a friend who was telling me how 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.600 the Denver airport has this distinct smell to her, and 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.040 so does the Path train in New York. But what's 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:32.160 interesting is that some cities and countries are actually making 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.000 an effort to recognize the value of their odors. So 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.680 in two thousand and one, Japan's environment minister classified the 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.560 country's top one hundred best smelling spots, which ran the 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.160 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 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.640 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 0:15:05.800 --> 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 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.080 you can land in another country, take this deep sniff 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:14.800 and go yep, that's Athens. 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.040 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 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:28.600 multisensory experience of urban space, and he says, quote, you 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.960 can learn a lot about a city's economy, a lot 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.000 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 --> 0:15:39.840 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 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.480 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 --> 0:15:55.120 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. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.120 I guess that's the smell of globalization. 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.600 Yeah, kind of like the macdonalization of culture. Yeah. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.640 Well, there's this community hell belief that the modern era 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.000 has been one of deodorization, that is, the belief that 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.000 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 --> 0:16:27.400 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 --> 0:16:36.520 That is so weird. I feel like the more you 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.920 learn about so creates less cool. He seems to be. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.160 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 --> 0:16:57.960 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 --> 0:17:05.080 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 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.040 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 --> 0:17:21.200 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 --> 0:17:37.879 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 0:17:41.040 --> 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. 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.600 I always thinking about that. Speaking of power, remember at 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:51.880 the beginning of the episode, you were actually talking about 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.399 how there are organic materials that are disappearing so their 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.280 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 --> 0:18:01.280 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 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:09.479 called ood. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.840 Oh I know oud, but not because I'm rich or hot, 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:15.000 I just like colones. 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.960 Well then you probably also know that ood is in 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.359 a lot of luxury fragrances from brands like tom Ford, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.439 Christian Dior, Joe Malone. But real ood comes from the 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:28.840 resin of wild agerwood trees. 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.200 Oh, I had no idea where the sun came from. 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.120 Yeah, and apparently those trees are under serious threat from 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:39.120 over harvesting. Kilo for kilo, ood is actually more costly 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.800 than gold. And as wild harvesting has been banned in 0:18:41.880 --> 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 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.760 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 --> 0:19:03.120 you want to let the trees cook for really about 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.080 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 --> 0:19:13.560 you know, Wil, there actually is precedent for recreating sense 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.520 from extinct plants. Well, that is super interesting and I 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:18.320 want to get into that. But before we do that, 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:34.760 let's take a quick break. Welcome back to part time genius. 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.120 We're talking about disappearing sense, all right, Mango, you were 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.760 just about to tell us about scientists recreating scents and 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:46.840 smells from extinct plants. I mean, the whole idea of 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:48.840 this is really cool to me. But actually, do you 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.439 remember in college I had an extra science credit I 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.760 needed to take, and I was looking through the options 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.320 and I almost took organic chemistry because you know, one 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.160 of the things that said in the pathleot was that 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.960 you could learned to create the scent of pairs and 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.119 a lab. And I really love that. 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.239 I love that that was like the reason you were 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:09.840 going to take what was probably known as like the 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.359 hardest weed out class in all of college. It would 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:13.720 have been a. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.320 Disaster, I know. And actually you're the one who convinced 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.359 me not to do it, because I chemistry, but the 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:23.480 curiosity about how to make sense and a level almost 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.520 tricked me into hating my senior year. But I hear you, 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.880 let's talk about these extinct flowers. So in twenty sixteen, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.679 a team of biologists, researchers, and artists embarked on a 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:39.440 project called Resurrecting the Sublime, and using tiny amounts of 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.639 DNA extracted from specimen of three flowers, a team of 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.680 scientists used synthetic biology to predict and resynthesize the gene 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:52.240 sequences that could encode for fragrance producing enzymes and then 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:57.000 using those findings, this smell researcher and artist named Cecil 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.159 Tolas used her expertise to reconstruc the flowers smells in 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:05.680 the 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 --> 0:21:11.879 that helped create perfumes. But what were the extinct flowers? 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.200 Yeah, she's a nose like that's what they're called. But yeah, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.000 I'm gonna murder the pronunciation of these flowers, but bear 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:27.040 with me. The Hibiscadelphus wilderaneus or maui how kiwaii? 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:28.800 You murdered it? 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:33.320 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 --> 0:21:39.159 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 0:21:49.240 --> 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 --> 0:21:58.919 its habitat in Cape Town, South Africa was already lost 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.200 to colonial van so you know it had disappeared there 0:22:02.240 --> 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 --> 0:22:14.600 like you can, you know, send off these smells or anything. 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.119 Yeah, I mean, there's something amazing about like the idea 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.400 of smelling a new scent, right, Like it's like seeing 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:22.760 a new color or something. It just feels unimaginable, But 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.920 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 --> 0:22:34.600 one of his students, Rachel Field, invented a prototype called 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:37.560 the O Phone, which was designed to let people send 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:39.440