
A Rose by Any Other Name
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The second event in the Science of the Five Senses Series, a 5-part series of live events designed to convey to scientists and nonscientists alike the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge about how humans perceive our environment, through presentations that integrate science and art.
How does a particular scent conjure a memory? How does the brain interpret olfactory signals for food, danger, or potential mating partners? The head of Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior and the author of a new book on the sense of smell explain.
Leslie Vosshall is Chemers Family Associate Professor; Investigator, HHMI Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior at Rockefeller University. Before starting her own lab, she worked under Nobel Laureate Richard Axel at Columbia University.
Avery Gilbert is the author of What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life, which hit bookstores in June. He has conducted research on human odor perception in academic laboratories and in the R&D divisions of multinational perfume companies.