In 2021, a survey in the journal Brain Sciences found that people consistently ranked smell below vision and hearing — and even below commercial products.
In recent decades, we've gained a greater understanding of just how much humans rely on the sense of smell — for everything from social communication to the detection of environmental hazards.
It's a sensitivity that would have made evolutionary sense for our foraging ancestors as they sought food, helping them to discern the smell of overripe fruit.
In 2015 a study from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science found that after a handshake, people consistently brought their own hand to their nose — subconsciously smelling each other.
While the loss of smell emerged as a possible symptom of COVID-19 as early as March 2020, it took months for governments to add it to their screening guidelines for the virus — even after researchers flagged it as one of the most accurate indicators of infection.
A recent study published in the academic journal Life suggests that at least seven per cent of those who lost their sense of smell to COVID-19 have never fully recovered it.
The original article contains 1,195 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 85%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!