Capturing the scent of a book

A smell can evoke memories of a certain time, place or experience – now scientists at University College London are documenting scents as a way of recording culturally significant artefacts. Helen Drew explains.



We read them, we learn from them, some of us even write them. Books old or new, falling apart or unread. Here at University College London's Institute of Archaeology library it’s the largest collection of conservation-related books in London. But it's not just the words written on these pages that are important. According to scientists, the smell of these books has a significance that should also be recorded.
Smells have a big impact on our everyday life: how we feel, how we think and even how we behave, so we started looking into those smells that might have cultural value to us as a society and so our first challenge was to find, identify smell that we knew people valued and the smell of old books and historic libraries appeared as a very clear case.
In this lab scientists from UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage are collecting chemicals on a tiny sensor which they then pop into a machine to separate the individual chemical compounds. These chemicals can then be used to recreate that smell in the future.
What do you think of the smell of books?
They have a rather particular smell for sure and I think it’s lovely, it's sort of musty but it's… it's really enjoyable. I love the smell of old libraries.
The smell of a book becomes associated of what you read in the book, well that can lead to all sorts of associations and sometimes the smell is enough just to remind you of what a book is.
Always when you get a new book and it's like the new smell, it's a kind of part of the experience.
At the moment smell is rarely recorded.
If you go to a gallery or to a museum, a hundred percent of the time the objects communicate with you visually, you can see the shapes, you can see the colours but you cannot touch them and you cannot smell them.
There are also … archives to recreate the potpourri from a National Trust house in the 1700s, so that when visitors walk in, they're transported back in time. The whole project isn't just about recording smells but also the emotions they evoke.
Helen Drew, BBC London news.

Talking point: The senses

This week's talking point is the senses. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas come to mind more easily the day you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

What are the five senses?
What memories/sensations do you associate to specific senses? V.g. The sheets feeling really cold or rough (touch)
Which sense do you think is most important to you in your everyday life?
Which sense would you be able to cope best without?
Which sense triggers the most memories?
Have you ever lost the use of one of your senses temporarily?
Do you know anyone who has one sense especially well-developed?
Do you know people without a sense, either totally (someone who’s deaf) or partially (someone who’s colour-blind)?
What do you think it might be like to live in a world without colour?
Why do we talk about a sixth sense? Can you give some examples?
Do you remember any famous films or books where one of the senses plays an important part?

Interaction
Imagine that you have the option to have some software device installed in your body that allows to extend your senses. Here are some of the capabilities that the device might allow you to have (taken from the TV series Heroes).
If you could choose only one of them, which one would you choose. Give your reasons. Would you life change for the better?

Teleport yourself to a different place and time

Envisage the future

Hear people’s thoughts

Fly

Copy the abilities of anyone you’re in contact with

Have superhuman strength

Regenerate your body after an injury

Affect the operation of machines (technopathy)

To illustrate the topic, you can watch Neil Harbisson's talk for TED I listen to colour, where he tells us about the fact that he was born completely color blind, but these days a device attached to his head turns color into audible frequencies. Instead of seeing a world in grayscale, Harbisson can hear a symphony of color — and yes, even listen to faces and paintings.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening: The Brain with David Eagleman: What Is Reality?

The Brain with David Eagleman is a BBC series in which Dr David Eagleman takes viewers on an extraordinary journey that explores how the brain, locked in silence and darkness without direct access to the world, conjures up the rich and beautiful world we all take for granted.

What Is Reality? begins with the astonishing fact that this technicolour multi-sensory experience we are having is a convincing illusion conjured up for us by our brains. In the outside world there is no colour, no sound, no smell. These are all constructions of the brain. Instead, there is electromagnetic radiation, air compression waves and aromatic molecules, all of which are interpreted by the brain as colour, sound and smell.

We meet a man who is blind despite the fact that he has eyes that can see. His story reveals that it's the brain that sees, not the eyes. A woman with schizophrenia, whose psychotic episodes were her reality, emphasises the fact that whatever our brains tell us is out there, we believe it.
Visual illusions are reminders that what's important to the brain is not being faithful to 'reality', but enabling us to perceive just enough so that we can navigate successfully through it. The brain leaves a lot out of its beautiful rendition of the physical world, a fact that Dr Eagleman reveals using experiments and street demonstrations.

Each one of our brains is different, and so is the reality it produces. What is reality? It's whatever your brain tells you it is.

Talking point: The senses

Today's talking point is the senses. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below, so that ideas can flow more easily when  you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary issues beforehand.

• What are the five senses?
• What memories/sensations do you associate to specific senses? V.g. The sheets feeling really cold or rough (touch); the smell of meat in my butcher neighbours' house.
• Which sense do you think is most important to you in your everyday life?
• Which sense would you be able to cope best without?
• Which sense brings the best memories to you?
• Have you ever lost the use of one of your senses temporarily?
• Do you know anyone who has one sense especially well-developed?
• Do you know people without a sense, either totally (someone who’s deaf) or partially (someone who’s colour-blind)?
• Do you remember any famous films or books where one of the senses plays an important part?
• Do some people have a sixth sense? If so, how does it manifest itself? 
• Does 'female intuition' really exist? If so, how does it manifest itself?
• Do you have a good 'sense of direction'? And a good 'common sense'? And a 'sense of humour?' And a 'sense of ridicule'? Can you think of any more senses?

To illustrate the point, you can listen to BBC's Six Minutes English segments Smells and Memories and Synesthesia, about people confusing senses.

The Corpse Flower

Here is the famous corpse flower in full bloom at the US Botanic Garden. While many visitors expected to smell the flower's powerful scent, a few were a little disappointed.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions about it.

The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.



1 Why is an Italian explorer in Sumatra mentioned?
2 When does the peak smell usually come?
3 What does the smell attract?
4 How long does the plant release the smell?
5 What gets trapped inside the plant?
6 When does the plant produce the most stinking smell?

You can check the answers by reading the transcript below.

I'm interested to see the stinky, corpsy smell.
According to this brochure, it's a stinky plant.
Well, they said rotting meat.  So I'm going to assume if it's in bloom it's going to stink.
We're display a titan arum.  The latin name of this plant is Amorphophallus titanium.  It's a really awesome plant that was first discovered to Western scientists in the late 1800s by an Italian explorer in Sumatra, Indonesia (1).
It's got this crazy, disgusting smell.  In fact, the Indonesian name for the plant directly translates as 'corpse flower' and it smells like a rotting corpse.
The peak smell usually comes within just a couple of hours of opening (2).  So as soon as it is open enough, it starts generating the stench and that peaks within three to four hours later.
The way the flower works is it has two runs of flowers down in its base, and the female flowers are the first to start.  And their strategy is to put the cattle call out to every carrion fly, beetle, sweat fly [insects (3)]...
They think they are going towards a rotting corpse which is what they love.  They love to eat them.  They like to lay eggs in them.  They like to have a great time in them.
So it pulses that smell out to get insects in that hopefully already have pollen on them from a previous plant that was in the male cycle somewhere in the area.  So they come in, the heat generates the smell.  It's just overwhelmingly wonderful for them.
The plant only releases the putrid smell for two nights (4).  The insects actually get trapped inside the plant (5).
And then the male flowers open up.  It's already got the pollinators inside.  It doesn't need to make any more smell.  So after that first twelve hours, its got what it needs in there, it starts raining pollen down on them and then it can let them go. It kind of starts easing up after the flower's been open about 24, 36 hours.  And the beetles can escape, again with pollen on them.
It didn't smell that bad, actually.  I didn't smell any really bad odor but I guess it was if you got close enough. We weren't that close.
It wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. But I could kind of smell it.  It smelled like a mixture of maggots and really smelly feet.
Fortunately for the public, the plant produces its most odoriferous emissions the middle of the night from about midnight to 4am (6).  So nobody will be around.  So during the day when the visitors come in, it's just going to be a bit less of that smell.  And so people will smell it.  And the plant is in a rather large greenhouse and that will dilute the smell a little bit but people should be able it, no problem.
Every now and then, I could a little whiff and went, 'Whoah!.' Also, I don't really, we don't really smell rotten flesh all that often.  Just alone it was cool to look at.