Does anyone smell bacon

Write your comment. From the movie: The Wraith. Do you smell a cop? From the movie: Bad Boys. Reads the label] Ether. Oh shit! Oh you're the fuckin' man tonight! You go and pick an ice -cream truck that's a damn bomb! From the movie: The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. Fishermen, they get up, they fish, they sell fish, they smelt fish. Reminds me of this girl I used to go with, Yvonne, she smelled like fish.

Woody Allen film director , actor , scriptwriter. Johnny Depp actor. Robin Williams - actor. Bruce Willis actor , film producer , musician. Denzel Washington film director , actor. Tom Hanks film director , actor , producer. Harrison Ford actor. Tom Cruise actor. There are obvious reasons why somebody may respond badly to the smell of cooking pork—ether ideological they're vegetarian or vegan , or religious Jews and Muslims both prohibit the consumption of pork, while Buddhists and Jains are strict vegetarians.

But two different studies suggest that a negative reaction to the smell of bacon may be happening at a deeper, subconscious level. A study from the Monell Chemical Sense Center, an independent nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, showed that small changes in a single olfactory receptor gene can greatly impact how strong and pleasant a person finds an odor. These receptors in the nose encode information about what a smell is before the information reaches the brain, and humans have around different types of receptors.

One molecule of odor can activate several receptors, while a single receptor can be activated by several different odors. In many cases, these receptors are super useful—they tell you immediately if a smell is toasting bread or a burning kitchen, for example.

But the Monell Chemical Sense Center researchers found that just a single receptor being changed was enough to change a person's odor perception. A study out of Duke University Medical Center found that 70 percent of people have two functional copies of a gene linked to an odor receptor that can detect androstenone, a compound common in male mammals and present in pork. People with one or no functional copies of the gene can tolerate the scent of androstenone much more easily.

So next time someone balks at the scent of your breakfast bacon, don't just blame them for being a fussy eater—it may well be their genes talking. All Rights Reserved. Open side menu button. Sure, it could be ideological or religious, but you may despise the scent because of your genes. By John Quinn October 26, Missing a single odor receptor or having multiple copies of a gene can affect your sense of smell.