The Physics and Biology of Olfaction

If you've seen Living Waters, you were undoubtedly amazed at the complexity of operations going on inside a salmon's nose. Yet that animation vastly oversimplifies the olfactory sense. New findings continue to bring scientists closer to understanding how it works, adding to what we previously reported in September.

Last time we focused on the olfactory epithelium, the tissue that receives the odor molecules. We saw how it is organized into a hierarchical pattern that provides the best possib...