From a flower petal to a perfume or a stale meat product, every smell is made of a composition of molecules that produce odour and bind the protein receptors in the nose.
Scientists have, however, been struggling to study the composition and combination of the smell caused by the odourant molecules. There are some things that have very strong odours while some are completely odourless.
Scientists from the Salk Institute and Arizona State University found a new way to keep a track of the odour molecules on the basis of the frequency and duration of their occurrences.
They used a data to discover the areas of the odour combinations on the basis of the ones people find pleasant and those they do not like. The scientists also tried to categorize odourant molecules based on their chemical compositions and structures and the research led to a finding that molecules with similar looking structures could have different odours.
They used samples of fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, and rat urine for their research. Four sets of samples were collected to study the frequency of their occurrence. In the study, the scientists found that there were combinations of pleasant and unpleasant odours from the clusters put together.
(With inputs from ANI)