Scent, In Silico - Asimov Press

Once a primal instinct, olfaction is now being mapped, measured, and modeled by machines.

The Long Read Scent, In Silico Once a primal instinct, olfaction is now being mapped, measured, and modeled by machines. Asimov Press Feb 16, 2026 72 10 17 Share Article voiceover 0:00 -33:18 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. By Taylor Rayne Smell is our most primal and, arguably, most emotionally potent sense. It summons memories, shapes taste, and influences behavior : the aroma of coffee is capable of enhancing alertness well before caffeine ever reaches the bloodstream. A hint of sunscreen collapses decades, taking us back to youth; but, pinch the nose, and s

related reading

• We Induced Artificial Smells With Ultrasound Brain Stimulation | Write to Brainwritetobrain.com
• You Can Literally Sniff Out Other People's Inner Feelings | Scientific Americanscientificamerican.com
• 12. The Space of Olfaction is δ-Hyperbolictiled-with-pentagons.blogspot.com
• Odor coding in the mammalian olfactory epithelium - PMCncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• The flavor of the bitter lesson for computer vision - Vincent Sitzmannvincentsitzmann.com
• Toward Computational Taste: LLMs, Aesthetics & Judgment | Patronpatron.fund
• Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
• When Models Manipulate Manifolds: The Geometry of a Counting Tasktransformer-circuits.pub
• What does the nose know? Olfactory function predicts social network size in humannature.com
• Memory formation in the absence of experiencenature.com
• Can you smell design?itsnicethat.com
• Prism: mapping interpretable concepts and features in a latent space of language | thesephist.comthesephist.com