Halloween is just around the corner and memento mori’s are everywhere.
Little reminders of death, Skeletons, ghosts, literally show up at on your doorstep.
but if death really did show up at your door, would know what it smelled like?
Hey guys Julia here for DNews.
Weird question I know, but we’ve all heard the horror story of some one’s apartment
building starts smelling weird.
And for like a week everyone just complains as the smell gets worse and worse.
Until one day the landlord checks it out and finds out that the neighbor down the hall
has been dead for days.
ugh creeepy.
But the thing is, as….
common as the smell is, it’s hard to pin down.
I mean scientists are very good at figure out the physics of other senses.
Like light and sound.
But the thing is, scents don’t come in waves.
It comes in molecules that diffuse through the air to reach your nose.
How they move is totally random.
The molecules bounce off each other till they fill a space.
Once they reach your head, those molecules fit certain receptors and trigger a specific
smell.
So maybe we have specific receptors to smell death.
In the case of death, when something dies, or meat rots, certain chemicals are produced
when protein decomposes.
It’s broken down into it’s smaller molecules, amino acids lysine and ornithine, then, those
break down further into putrescine and cadaverine.
When those molecules reach our nose, we react with revolusion.
But we’re not the only ones, surprise surprise.
Lots of animals seem to have an adverse reaction to a whiff of death.
The zebrafish are a prime example of this.
In one study published in the Proceeds of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers
sought to find what goes on in their fishy brains when they catch a whiff of of death.
They found the fish react very strongly to low concentrations of cadaverine.
The fish instantly swam away from just a drop of death.
The researchers found that a certain receptor in their brains, TAAR13c, fit exactly the
compound for cadaverine.
It’s kind of like a lock and key system, the receptor only binds to that compound.
While that particular receptor is only in bony fishes, we have similar receptors in
our brains.
And for good reason, Putrescine and cadaverine warn us when something is wrong.
Whether meat that has gone bad that could potentially poison us or when something dead
is nearby signalling danger.
We probably evolved these specific receptors to help keep us alive.
For some reason, humans smell different when we decompose.
Those who’ve smelled it say it smells like nothing else.
Trace unfortunately enough, experienced the unpleasantness first hand.
He described it as ““sort of like wet dog but worse, wet dog but warmer and more
heady, earthy”.
A recent study published in the journal PLOS one measured the smell of death.
Specifically the smell of human death.
Belgian researchers isolated specific compounds from decomposing human remains.
They put pig, mouse, mole, rabbit, turtle, frog, and bird remains in separate jars and
let them decompose over the course of 6 months.
Not the greatest postdoc job in the world, but someone’s gotta do it.
The researchers periodically took samples of the gases and found 452 organic compounds.
Only eight compounds distinguished pig and human remains from those of other animals.
Which makes sense they’d look for ones exclusive to pigs and humans since human and pig flesh
are pretty similar.
But the researchers also found five fragrant compounds called esters that separated pigs
from humans.
While these esters could be the key to the smell of human death, more research is needed.
The study only sampled certain body parts and didn’t include the microbes that help
with decomposition that could possibly contribute to the smell.
Besides just for funsies, the researchers hoped that nailing down the exact molecules
behind the smell of human decay they could “allow a more efficiently training of cadaver
dogs or portable detection devices could be developed”.
So that could be cool, it could make it easier for forensic investigators find evidence or
maybe it could be kind of creepy.
Most people are morbidly fascinated by the subject of death.
It’s mysterious, terrifying, and yet comes for us all whether we’re ready or not.
Trace recently explored the topic in depth over on his TestTube Plus Podcast.
Check it out.
So have you ever experienced the smell of death?
What did it smell like to you?
Tell me about it down in the comments below and hit those like and subscribe buttons so
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