Some people say they can smell insects, while others don’t detect any smell from them at all. And even those who do smell bugs often disagree on what a given type of insect smells like. If you don’t believe me, just search the topic on social media; you’ll find some lively discussions.
But when you know how the sense of smell works, variations in whether or not people smell bugs — or variations in how they smell anything else, for that matter — isn’t surprising.
When we smell something, we’re breathing in molecules that are picked up by odor receptors located on neurons (olfactory sensory neurons, or OSNs) that line the nasal cavity. These odor receptors are the first-line sensors that detect odors in our environment, explains Dennis Mathew, a neuroscientist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies olfaction at the cellular and molecular levels.
There are roughly 10 ...
