MIT: Independent Activities Period: IAP

IAP 2016



Making Sense of Scent

Andreas Mershin, Research Scientist

Jan/27 Wed 01:00PM-04:00PM E14-633, don't wear a lot of perfume/cologne/aftershave

Enrollment: Limited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/25
Limited to 100 participants
Prereq: none

In 1914, Alexander Graham Bell said: "If you are ambitious to find a new science, measure a smell".

This activity is designed to give you the knowledge and practical experience necessary to understand why it's 2016 and we still haven't "measured a smell" and why it's more important than ever to do so.

During the lecture part of this activity you will learn how biological and machine noses work. We will cover emerging applications ranging from diagnostics to drug discovery and how new experimental methods are challenging old theoretical models of olfaction.

You will be equipped to critically dissect ongoing scientific controversies such as: "humans can discriminate over one trillion/no more than 5000 odors", "shape or vibration?", "analytical or synthetic?", "chemical or spectral?", "combinatorial or emergent?", "classical or quantum?".

 

During the practical session you will be trained on methods to enhance your olfactory intelligence while participating in a blindfolded perfume discrimination exercise. Most perfume novices will be surprised to discover how sensitive their noses become. Perfume aficionados may actually be able to beat a GC-MS. Anosmics please join us as controls! (we'll teach you fun tricks to confuse Sommeliers or how to cause olfactory hallucinations).  

 By the end of the course you will be able to answer Shakespeare's own question better than he did:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Contact: Andreas Mershin, E15-401G, 617 515-4192, MERSHIN@MIT.EDU