The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell

Human olfaction – the sense of smell – enables us to appreciate food and drink, it warns us of dangers and it makes our environments more enjoyable. However, olfaction is one of our least explored sensory systems. Until now.

Smells and scents are the colour that enrich our experience of life. Ask anyone to reflect on their sense of smell, and they immediately start talking. First there are discussions about food and wine, but pretty quickly they move on to personal topics: about the smells that evoke memories of childhood, dead relatives, pregnancy, love and sex. When people talk about their sense of smell, they also tell us something about themselves, their feelings, thoughts and relationships. Thus, the sense of smell not only reflects the chemical world outside us, but also bears witness to our inner world, our feelings and thoughts.

The Forgotten Sense explores the unknown mind and how it shapes people: Why can smells evoke such strong memories? How much can body odors control who you fall in love with? How sensitive is the human sense of smell? In many ways these questions are on the very forefront of our understanding, but Dr Jonas Olofsson has spent years studying the least understood of our senses. And he has discovered that it is actually possible to improve and refine one’s sense of smell, to develop it into a more useful tool to bring a powerful immediacy to your life.

Review

‘At heart, this is an enjoyably enthusiastic and fairly rapid survey of present-day smell science’ James McConnachie, Sunday Times

'Humans are highly visual, suggesting that, compared to other mammals, our olfactory system has atrophied. Instead, what has atrophied is our appreciation of and knowledge about olfaction. Highly readable and scientifically impeccable, The Forgotten Sense takes on topics ranging from whether human pheromones exist to links between olfactory disgust and political views to what is revealed about someone’s health by both how good they smell and how well they smell. I thoroughly enjoyed this book' Robert M. Sapolsky, New York Times bestselling author of Behave and Determined

'I love this book. It reawakened my sense of smell more than any zesty body wash or freshly brewed cup of coffee. The Forgotten Sense brilliantly explores the science that underpins our sense of smell' Mark Miodownik, New York Times bestselling author of Stuff Matters

'With intelligence and wit, a researcher raises our sensitivity to smell' Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Dr Jonas Olofsson received his PhD in 2008 at Umeå University and was appointed as docent at Stockholm University in 2009. He has conducted research at Northwestern University (Chicago, 2009-2011), The Scripps Research Institute (San Diego, 2005-2006) and at Karolinska Insitutet (Stockholm, 2009). Since 2016, he has been an adjunct associate professor at New York University School of Medicine.