What scientists say about 10 basic odors

It might seem that the range of scents humans can detect is infinite, but scientists have managed to sort them all into 10 basic categories, ranging from peppermint to pungent. “It's sort of like what's happening when you compress an image or audio file,” said Jason Castro, the neuroscientist at Bates College in Maine who led the effort. “You dump all the redundant stuff and keep only the most essential information.” The result was a list of 10 key odor categories: fragrant, woody/resinous, minty/peppermint, sweet, chemical, popcorn, lemon, fruity (non-citrus), pungent and decayed. The researchers have not yet tested these categories on people to see whether humans would make the same distinctions. But there is reason to believe they might, since the categories were not completely subjective. As part of the study, Castro and his colleagues examined the chemical structures of odors in the woody/resinous group using data from earlier studies. They found that several of these odors had similar chemical structures.