Ch. 8 - Making Scents

Although I have learned new information in each chapter so far in this book, the stuff I learned while I read Chapter 8 was profound. In the beginning, I was kind of lost when Shubin was explaining our sense of smell but when he used the chord analogy, I started to understand a little more of what he was talking about. One of the interesting facts I discovered was that fish were able to smell in the water and they had similar nasal openings as humans. Though now there are only animals with either water-based or air-based receptors, there were fish that had both types in the past. But what really amazed me was how humans had traded smell for sight. I knew that humans lacked the ability to smell compared to other mammals, but I never knew that in exchange we were able to see better. Shubin explained that the reason why we don't have a wide sense of smell is because that many of the odor genes that we have do not function. I wonder what would happen and how the world would be like if we were able to use those genes and if they did function? I think it might be a possibility in the future since evolution as well as mutation is a natural and unstoppable process in life.