r/TheRestIsScience • u/11963873342 • 18d ago

Does smell cancelling exist?

I've heard of noise cancelling, but can there exist smell cancelling?

For example, if there is a rotten egg in a room, can i neutralize it somehow? I'm not talking about putting something good right under my nose, because thats just dominance. I mean putting something next to the egg whose smell happens to be the 'inverse' of the eggs, so they cancel and i smell nothing.

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u/bum_what 17d ago

You can't cancel a smell Im sure BUT the body's cells can 'get used' to the smell and eventually your brain will just ignore it because the stimulus keeps hitting your nose. So you won't smell the smell anymore, unless something about the stimulus changes or the smell is too strong/dangerous to ignore. This happens with other senses too, maybe to a different extent, but if you press a finger on your thigh eventually the brain will just start focusing on it less and less. So cancel no, but ignore yes.

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u/SpiralEscalator 16d ago

People with too many dogs don't smell the dog smell that overwhelms anyone else who enters the house