For those who worry about their own smell, there’s the Flatuence Deodorizer!

The idea that we (and other animals too, I guess) use Quantum Tunneling to detect odors is yet another example of how incredibly interesting, complex, and esoteric nature can be. If this proves true, I wonder if that will enable us to creatre artificial noses that work as well or better than ours?

Basically, scientists know that odorant molecules in the air actuate several types of receptors in our noses, which then trigger nerve cells for the brain to analyze. But while scientists know that the shape and size of molecules can make odors smell differently, some molecules with nearly identical shapes smell nothing alike.

This apparent conundrum is due to the lack of understanding of what happens before and as the odorant molecules interact with the nasal receptors. These initial atomic-scale processes must include some selection criteria that explain why receptors react differently to molecules of the same (or different) shapes.

The possibility that LCN physicists Jennifer Brookes, Filio Hartoutsiou, Andrew Horsfield and Marshall Stoneham have looked into is that electrons in the receptors can be triggered to tunnel between energy states, provided the odorant molecule’s vibration frequency matches the energy difference of these states.

Whereas the basic chemical image of smell in the past was a “lock and key” model, with different shaped molecules fitting in different receptors, the LCN team explains how the electron tunneling mechanism is more of a “swipe card” model. Similar to a credit card, an odorant molecule would be “read” by receptors that picked up its vibration spectrum, along with matching its shape.

Even if we can create artificial noses using this concept, they would still need to be programmed for each scent they are intended to capture. The advantage in a real nose is that even if we don’t know what it is we’re smelling, we can tell a lot about it by how we react to it.