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Can we record smells?

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Eggman
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24 Feb 2009, 8:37 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Eggman wrote:
Mass spectromiter used to dectet gasses compentents and levels...store the data into memory...smell has been recorded


Can it be "played back" (so to speak)?

ruveyn


Well he only asked if they can be recorded. Not played back. Playing back woyuld be a bit more dificult, perhaps requiring a chimcal plant. I suspect interfacing to the brain to produce the sensatuions of the smell will be more likly to happen then the actual production of the compounds


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Dussel
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25 Feb 2009, 2:33 am

ruveyn wrote:
Blake_be_cool wrote:
Ok now, me i'm no scientist but i do know that: Yes! we can record smells by useing tech (We do have, No myth) to copy the atoms in the air and reprint those to recreate that smell. Like I said i'm no scientist that's like super basic,



Atoms cannot be made up out of thin air. One does not reprint atoms. One fissions atoms, one fuses atoms but one does not reprint atoms.

Every atom in your body was cooked up in a supervova.


Not "every" - Hydrogen-atoms not; they exist prior the formation of the first stars, but you are right for the rest.



ruveyn
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25 Feb 2009, 10:22 am

Dussel wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Blake_be_cool wrote:
Ok now, me i'm no scientist but i do know that: Yes! we can record smells by useing tech (We do have, No myth) to copy the atoms in the air and reprint those to recreate that smell. Like I said i'm no scientist that's like super basic,



Atoms cannot be made up out of thin air. One does not reprint atoms. One fissions atoms, one fuses atoms but one does not reprint atoms.

Every atom in your body was cooked up in a supervova.


Not "every" - Hydrogen-atoms not; they exist prior the formation of the first stars, but you are right for the rest.


True. Every atom heavier than lithium was cooked up in a star. That includes that atoms "that count" namely nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, phosphorus which make up the bulk of organic matter. No stars, no us.

ruveyn



ruveyn
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25 Feb 2009, 10:23 am

Eggman wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Eggman wrote:
Mass spectromiter used to dectet gasses compentents and levels...store the data into memory...smell has been recorded


Can it be "played back" (so to speak)?

ruveyn


Well he only asked if they can be recorded. Not played back. Playing back woyuld be a bit more dificult, perhaps requiring a chimcal plant. I suspect interfacing to the brain to produce the sensatuions of the smell will be more likly to happen then the actual production of the compounds


Would you write down what you could not read back. Would you record what you could not replay? Recording implies that there is some kind of retrieval possible.

ruveyn



Dussel
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25 Feb 2009, 10:29 am

Back to the topic:

1) Smell is composed of a range of chemical components.
2) Smell is often a complex mixture of chemical components.
3) Such chemical components can be analyst automatically.
4) The result of this analysis can be stored digital.
5) From this stored data the composition of the original components can be restored.
6) Therefore smell can be recorded and played.

The only question remains how much effort is needed and is the effort worth for the sensation.



Eggman
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25 Feb 2009, 2:15 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Eggman wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Eggman wrote:
Mass spectromiter used to dectet gasses compentents and levels...store the data into memory...smell has been recorded


Can it be "played back" (so to speak)?

ruveyn


Well he only asked if they can be recorded. Not played back. Playing back woyuld be a bit more dificult, perhaps requiring a chimcal plant. I suspect interfacing to the brain to produce the sensatuions of the smell will be more likly to happen then the actual production of the compounds


Would you write down what you could not read back. Would you record what you could not replay? Recording implies that there is some kind of retrieval possible.


ruveyn


im still technically correct, the best kind of correct


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pakled
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28 Feb 2009, 9:08 pm

sure, doesn't anyone remember 'Pink Flamingos'?...;) they had a 'scratch and sniff' board...but don't scratch #2...it smelled like...well... '#2'...;)



Dussel
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01 Mar 2009, 5:15 am

pakled wrote:
sure, doesn't anyone remember 'Pink Flamingos'?...;) they had a 'scratch and sniff' board...but don't scratch #2...it smelled like...well... '#2'...;)


OK - but a whole industry lives from producing artificial flavours and smells.



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26 Mar 2009, 11:32 pm

Quantitatively, yes. Scent is an aromatic compound; an ester chemically. GC-Mass Spec volatilizes aromatics and this is quantified. A good ex: The perfume industry. The scent of roses, for example, can be 'captured' from triple-bonded compounds and basically harnessed via gas chromatography.

And, yes, I guess pakled is right about 'Scratch 'n Sniff' stickers but I don't know what Pink Flamingo's are, in terms of scent. What about Magic Markers?

ruveyn: "Played back?" Well, esters are uncanny mimics and these can be synthetically reproduced. So, yes. Like car freshener trees.


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28 Mar 2009, 2:00 am

Well it will be quite an interesting problem,

I would suggest using head space GCMS with some concentrating stage such as cryo focusing to get a fingerprint of the smell.

When you can take advantage of the fact that some substances smell the same, for instance nitrobenzene and benzaldehyde smell the same to me. You might be able to reproduce the smell using a library of smelly compounds. That way we could play back the smell.

The problem I see is that not all people have the same sense of smell, for instance only about the 30% of the population who can smell HCN at a low concentration.


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