The number of scents that humans can smell is breathtakingly large. According to the researchers, we perceive between a hundred thousand and up to a million different scents. At Karolinska Institutet, a research team is working to develop the knowledge and technology to record a fragrance that is then sent via the internet to another place in the world.
"If it's easy, we can have the most optimal olfactory TV in ten years, but it can also take a hundred years," says Johan Lundström, professor of neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet.
Basic odours should be mixed into thousands of scents
The idea is that 20 basic smells should be mixed together and create almost all the scents we experience. The goal is to send and recreate 75 percent of all the world's fragrances in six years.
Sending fragrances over the internet isn't just for the entertainment industry. The researchers also see that the healthcare system can make use of the new technology when the number of digital doctor visits increases.
How Odour TV works
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This is how to send a recorded scent across the globe to a TV screen. Photo: Lucas Nilsson/SVT graphics
Humans' sense of smell is better than we think
The research is conducted in several places around the world, including Germany, Israel and at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Together, the team will share more than eleven million euros.
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One of the best noses in the animal world sits on humans – but how strong does the scent have to be for us to experience it? Hear more in the video. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT