Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Volga bam here with a classic
Speaker 1: episode from our previous host, Christian Sager. We here generally
Speaker 1: approve of the cataloging and preservation of things, from films
Speaker 1: to recipes, to paintings, to traditional craft methods to bones,
Speaker 1: but some things are more ephemeral than others. Today's question
Speaker 1: is how might researchers go about preserving smells? Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: it's Christian Sagar, pardon me, fragrances your book wearing researchers
Speaker 1: at University College London suggests that the nose knows get it.
Speaker 1: In an extensive study of smells, heritage and historic paper
Speaker 1: published in the journal Heritage Science, the authors argue the
Speaker 1: importance of documenting and preserving smells, but why. The researchers
Speaker 1: realized that visitors at St. Paul's Cathedral, Dean and Chapter
Speaker 1: Library in London frequently comment on the aroma of the space,
Speaker 1: saying they feel like they can smell history now thanks
Speaker 1: to our limbic system. Odors can make us pretty emotional,
Speaker 1: especially when they evoke memories. Sense affect how we experience
Speaker 1: different cultures and places and help us gain more insight
Speaker 1: into and engage more deeply with the past. Since smells
Speaker 1: are a part of our cultural heritage, the researchers posit
Speaker 1: they have historical value and deserve to be identified, analyzed,
Speaker 1: and archived using chemical analysis and sensory descriptions. The study
Speaker 1: authors set about figuring out a way for scientists and
Speaker 1: historians to do so. In one experiment, the researchers asked
Speaker 1: visitors at the historic library to characterize the odors they smelled.
Speaker 1: More than seventy percent of respondents considered the library smell
Speaker 1: as pleasant. All the visitors thought it smelled woody, while
Speaker 1: eighty six percent noticed a smokey aroma. Earthy was seventy
Speaker 1: one and vanilla at fort were also descriptors visitors chose often.
Speaker 1: Other responses ranged from musty to pungent and floral to
Speaker 1: rancid mmmm. In another experiment, the study authors analyzed the
Speaker 1: responses of seventy nine visitors to the Birmingham Museum and
Speaker 1: Art Gallery in the United Kingdom to the smell of
Speaker 1: a historic book from a second hand bookstore. To capture
Speaker 1: the book smell, a piece of sterile gauze was soaked
Speaker 1: in five milli leaders or point one seven ounces of
Speaker 1: an extract of the book Odor and placed in an
Speaker 1: unlabeled metal canister Scrooge shut to prevent visitors from peaking
Speaker 1: the top three responses when the visitors were prompted to
Speaker 1: describe the smell chocolate, coffee, and old. The team even
Speaker 1: analyzed the volatile organic compounds also known as v o
Speaker 1: c s in the book and in the library. Most
Speaker 1: odors are composed of v o c s, or chemicals
Speaker 1: that evaporate at low temperatures. V o c s are
Speaker 1: often associated with certain smell types, like ascetic acid with sour,
Speaker 1: for instance. Using the data from the chemical analysis and
Speaker 1: visitors smell descriptions, the researchers created the Historic Book Odor
Speaker 1: Wheel to document an archive the Historic Library. Smell main
Speaker 1: categories such as sweet or spicy fill the inner circle
Speaker 1: of the wheel. Descriptors such as caramel or biscuits fill
Speaker 1: the middle, and the chemical compounds likely to be the
Speaker 1: smelly source, like for for all, fill the outer circle.
Speaker 1: The researchers want the Book Odor Wheel to be an
Speaker 1: interdisciplinary tool that untrained noses can use to identify smells
Speaker 1: and the compounds causing them, which could address conservators concerns
Speaker 1: about material composition and degradation inform artifact paper conservation decisions,
Speaker 1: and benefit Ola Factory Museum experiences. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Shelley Dancy and produced by Dylan Fagan and Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other ripe topics,
Speaker 1: is it how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is
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