The fascinating new odor known as 'olfactory white' can only be experienced inside the laboratory.
In a similar way to which white noise is a mixture of sound frequencies, the new smell was put together by combining a large number of different compounds. The resulting odor is not so much the product of any one compound but the combination of so many that it becomes no longer possible to tell them apart, a veritable overload of the olfactory senses.
So what exactly does 'olfactory white' smell like ? Volunteers invited to sample the strange new concoction agreed that it fell somewhere between pleasantness and edibility. "The best way to appreciate the qualities of olfactory white is to smell it," the team wrote.
"The smell is dubbed "olfactory white," because it is the nasal equivalent of white noise, researchers report today (November 19) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
View: Full article
Source: Yahoo! News
Discuss: View comments (8)