Our five senses—intro!

The next couple of issues of Nanooze will be devoted to our five senses---seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. These are really important even though a person who lacks one of these senses can lead full and rewarding life. If you look at any of these senses, they have a lot in common. There are some kinds of cells whose job it is to detect whatever is out there and that cell is then hooked up to a system to relay the signal to our brain where it is processed into a response. That sounds simple but it involves a lot of specialized cells and a complex system to transmit signals to the brain. Oh and then once there, your brain needs to figure out what is going on and give you the right picture, sound, smell, taste or feeling.

Scientists study our five senses in the hope of understanding how they work. That might lead to better sensors—for helping individuals mainly to hear or see better---or to help monitor our environment. The challenges are not building devices to sense but how they can be more sensitive, more rugged or where needed integrated into our bodies. Our bodies are complex systems that we are only beginning to understand how we are wired.

Over the next two issues, Nanooze will give you a bit about how your senses work but more importantly how nanotechnology might be able to help us better understand how they work. Even more exciting we will explore how nanotechnology can make our senses work even better.

Issue # 1: Smell and Vision