*sniff*

[Queso]

Technically,

what is a smell?

[GAHD]

a bunch of specifically shaped cilia having their mating molecule(s) slide into place which send a signal to the primitive areas of your brain.

[Queso]

So they're like airborne alkaloids?

How do all of these smells have a unique signature?

I'm going to look up the word cillia, see ya

[Queso]

Cilia is Latin for "eyelash." These tiny protuberances on single-cells organisms wave-like hairs to move the cell around or something around the cell. They are responsible for protecting us from germs in our lungs and pushing an ovum down the fallopian tube. Flagella are longer such hairs, usually found in ones or twos, such as the "tail" of a sperm. They share many characteristics with cilia, but they also occur on prokaryotes.

 

Eukaryotes, single-celled organisms, use cilia to move through liquid. A cilium attaches to the cytoskeleton of the cell with a basal body, the way a root attaches hair to our skin. The rhythm of the waving cilium is controlled by centrioles, located inside the cell wall. Mitochondria, other units inside the cell, provide ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for cilia, a source of cellular energy. The ATP directs the chemical kinesin to bind to certain parts of the cilia that control their movement. Thus, the cilia are able to "beat" or "swim" their way through viscous liquid.

 

The structure of a cilium is much like a tube, and its long fibers are called microtubules. These extended follicles in turn form a ring out of doublets. The cross-section of doublets of microtubules looks like a figure eight, since the two microtubules stick together along a line. There are nine doublets forming the larger ring in what is known as the 9-2 pattern. When kinesin binds to one side of the doublets and not the other, the cilium flexes and curves, similar to the way our skeletal muscles contract.

 

Eukaryotes that use cilia and flagella to move are also found in ferns, algae, bacteria, and inside many animals. This adaptation originally allowed independent cellular creatures, like Paramecium, to move around in search of food, rather than wait until food came to it. Since then, cells as part of larger systems continue to use cilia to great advantage.

 

Reminds me of a play I once saw in a twilight mountain clearing.

 

[Queso]

I still don't understand why I can smell coffee coming from underneath my door, or someone breaking wind silently @ high noon.

 

What is the fingerprint of a smell?

[Monomer]

Smell is a very direct sense. In order for you to smell something, molecules from that thing have to make it to your nose. Everything you smell, therefore, is giving off molecules -- whether it is bread in the bakery, onions, perfume, a piece of fruit or whatever. Those molecules are generally light, volatile (easy to evaporate) chemicals that float through the air into your nose. A piece of steel has no smell because nothing evaporates from it -- steel is a non-volatile solid.

 

Howstuffworks "How does the sense of smell work? What causes a smell?"

 

 

Smell is fascinating. I'm reading a book on smell at the moment which you might like to read orbsycli, called The Emperor of Scent. The popular theory is that we distinguish smell by the shape of the molecules, but the book outlines a vibration theory, which is that we determine smell by the vibration of each odour molecule.

 

Vibration theory of olfaction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shape theory of olfaction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Queso]

so it IS just like every other division of the spectrum . .

 

but it isn't.

 

thank you monomer you are too kind

[Monomer]

thank you monomer you are too kind

 

You're welcome, and thank you