New research suggests that the human sense of smell is just as good as other mammals including dogs and rodents. This study is a paradigm shift from the usual assumption that humans have a weak sense of smell.

Led by Rutgers University neurobiologist John McGann, who has been working for years to disprove the long believed submit that humans have a poor sense of smell, argues humans have as many functional odor receptors as other mammals that are considered to have a better sense of smell.

The olfactory receptor neurons in the nose work by making contacting with molecules that contain the odor, and they send this information to parts of the brain.

McGann argued in his paper that the misconception about a poor human sense of smell began in the 19th century when French Anatomist Paul Broca claimed that the part of the brain that is responsible for processing smile was smaller if compared to the size of the human body. He argued that other mammals have a clearly better sense of smell because their olfactory bulb was bigger in comparison to their body.

“Through a chain of misunderstandings and exaggerations beginning with Broca himself, this conclusion warped into the modern misapprehension that humans have a poor sense of smell,” wrote McGann. “Broca viewed smell as an animalistic sense that drove irrational behavior and thus must be diminished in importance in a rational being with free will.”

As a result of Broca’s argument, the belief passed from one generation to the next and now is considered to be true.

John McGann started researching the science behind the human sense of smell 14 years ago. According to his study, humans have approximately 1000 odor receptor genes, which is similar to the number of odor receptor genes of mice, which have 1,100. McGann also claims that there is no support for the belief that a larger olfactory bulb increases the sense of smell based on the size. 

“Dogs may be better than humans at discriminating the urines on a fire hydrant and humans may be better than dogs at discriminating the odors of fine wine, but few such comparisons have actual experimental support,” McGann writes.

Working out for 30 minutes five days a week can extend your lifespan by up to 10 years. According to a new study, researchers at the Brigham Young University found that high levels of exercise slow down the aging process. Researchers were surprised to find that those who regularly engaged in high levels of exercise such as jogging for five days a week had longer telomeres in comparison to others who did not exercise at all.

Telomeres are repetitive segments of DNA found at the end of each and every chromosome. As a cell grows older, telomeres become shorter. Consequently, scientists correlate short telomeres with age.

Researchers argue that some people seem younger than her actual age because they are more physically active, which results in less biological aging.

Exercise Science Professor Larry Tucker explained in a statement, “Just because you’re 40, doesn’t mean you’re 40-years-old biologically. We all know people that seem younger than their actual age. The more physically active we are; the less biological aging takes place in our bodies.”

Researchers for able to discover this after analyzing nearly 6000 adults from data taken from the CDC’s National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey, which tracks telomere lengths in research subjects.

Rise of Obesity in America

Despite this research breakthrough, within the United States, only 20% of people get enough exercise and nearly 64% never exercise at all. Moreover, research has shown that 40% of a child’s weight is linked to their parents.

In addition, scientists discovered a correlation between child development issues and obese parents. 75% of children with overweight fathers had problems interacting with others. Furthermore, children with two obese parents were 300% more likely to have problem-solving issues by the time they turn 3 years old.