Smell can evoke powerful memories, subtly influence attraction, and even regulate stress. But research suggests that what we sense depends as much on experience as on biology.

As mammals with large brains, humans experience smell as a powerful sensory experience that’s closely linked with memory. The smell of baking bread may take us back to a moment in Paris. A perfumy ...

As it turns out, that smell is an actual biological phenomenon, caused by an epidermal change that happens to everyone as ...