During the past 20 years or so, both our appreciation for the importance of the sense of smell and our understanding of basic mechanisms involved have increased to a remarkable degree. This has particularly been the case during the last five years.
Heightened Interest in Olfactory Research
This increase in interest in the sense of smell has, for example, been fostered by, and reflected in, increased interest by national media such as The National Geographic, the television program NOVA, and countless news stories in newspapers and magazines, and on radio and television. The public seems newly fascinated by the world of scent.
In the scientific community too, it is no longer just a few who devote their research lives to the study of olfaction. A growing scientific organization, the Association for Chemoreception Sciences founded about 15 years ago, holds an annual meeting that serves as a forum for discussing new research.
