Thanks to smell it is possible to capture odors.
Smell is the sense that allows a human being or animal to detect a smell . The term comes from the Latin word olfactus .
Thanks to smell, people can perceive fragrant particles through the nose . Odors are made up of molecules that move through the air and have certain chemical components that are captured by the sense of smell. It is estimated that a human being can distinguish more than ten thousand different odors thanks to its more than twenty million olfactory cells .
Smell functioning
Once the aroma enters the nose, a journey begins that triggers various reactions until the brain is responsible for processing the information. The action of the hypothalamus and other regions of the brain are responsible for releasing hormones and regulating emotions linked to odors.
There are various disorders and diseases that can affect the ability to smell. Anosmia , which can occur due to infection, trauma, or another reason, is the complete loss of this sense. If the faculty of smell is only partially affected, it is called hyposmia .
Dogs have a very developed sense of smell.
The case of the dogs
It is very common to hear that dogs have a sharper sense of smell than ours, but the specific data offered by the many experiments carried out in this regard are truly impressive. For example, it is known that the sensitivity of these animals to certain odors in particular can be a million times greater than ours. Smell is the sense that canids develop the most and the one that they use the most in their daily lives, to carry out their main activities.
The shape of a dog's snout makes it clear that their contact with the world begins with smell ; No matter what parameters are taken into account to compare their olfactory capacity with ours, they surpass us considerably. The analysis of smells and aromas is so important for dogs that when they concentrate on one they seem to dedicate all their energy to extracting information , like humans do when reading a news story in a newspaper.
With respect to their reproduction , smell plays a primary role, since males can detect the sexual pheromones of females and understand their predisposition to copulation.
The canine sense of smell at the service of the human being
Human beings have not missed the opportunity to exploit dogs for profit , and their greatest interest lies in their incredible sense of smell. Some areas in which its invaluable capacity is used are: rescues after landslides, floods and earthquakes; customs areas, to detect illegal and dangerous materials; investigations of gas leaks and electrical faults. In short, dogs are essential for the survival of man in many risk situations, and also for sustaining a large part of the structure of their societies.
It is worth mentioning that the dog's sense of smell is capable of perceiving odors that come from more than ten meters underground, and that is why their collaboration in finding living people buried in the rubble after an attack, for example, is so appreciated. Although it may be hard to believe, your sense of smell also allows you to detect cancer cells and even warn a person that they are about to have a hypoglycemic attack.
Other meanings of the concept
Smell, on the other hand, can be used in a symbolic sense to name the ability that a person has to understand or notice something that is hidden or hidden .
For example: “If my sense of smell is correct, this man wants something more with you,” “The manager's sense of smell failed and he did not realize that the agreement they offered him was, in reality, a scam.”