Science & Nature · 2
According to a landmark 2014 study published in the journal Science, which human sense has by far the greatest capacity to distinguish unique stimuli?
Answer
Smell
Researchers estimated that the human nose can discriminate over a trillion distinct odors, a scale far beyond the roughly few million colors the eye can see or the several hundred thousand tones the ear can hear.
💡 Did you know?
Your nose can remember and distinguish over 1 trillion different scents, far surpassing your ability to see or hear distinct variations.
Other options people guess
- Sight
- Hearing
- Touch
Topics
- human-body
- senses
- smell
- biology
Know your science & nature trivia?
Play a free Science & Nature quiz and see how many you get right — no signup needed to start.
More Science & Nature facts
Science & Nature
According to a 2014 Science study, approximately how many distinct scents can the human nose detect?
A 2014 Science study found humans can detect at least 1 trillion distinct odours — yet we have only about 400 different types of smell receptors to do it.
Science & Nature
Fingernails tend to grow fastest on which hand, due to increased blood circulation from more frequent use?
Human fingernails grow faster in summer than winter, and faster on your dominant hand due to increased blood circulation from use.
Science & Nature
Which disease is caused by a deficiency of vitamin C?
British sailors earned the nickname 'limeys' after discovering limes cured scurvy during long sea voyages.
Science & Nature
Unlike Marie Curie, whose two Nobel Prizes were awarded in different scientific fields, Frederick Sanger's two Nobel wins were both in which single category?
Frederick Sanger won two separate Nobel Prizes in Chemistry for determining protein and DNA sequences—one of only four people ever.
Science & Nature
What is the name of the process by which plants lose water vapor through small pores in their leaves?
A single large oak tree can transpire over 40,000 gallons of water into the atmosphere in a single year — roughly enough to fill a backyard swimming pool.
Science & Nature
Which icy moon of Saturn did NASA's Cassini spacecraft find spewing ocean geysers laced with organic chemicals?
Cassini-Huygens found organic chemicals in Saturn's moon Enceladus's ocean geysers, suggesting life conditions exist within our own solar system.