Human Senses 1. Smell and Taste (1 of 21)

Human Senses

Are your eyes being tricked by your brain? Do you know what a supertaster is? Or how to avoid travel sickness?

Programme 1 - Smell and Taste
In the first programme of the series Nigel Marven goes in search of the most disgusting , the most attractive smells and sets out to discover the biological reasons why humans eat such a diverse range of foods, from rotten raw ducks eggs to a sweaty blue cheese. At a chilli eating contest, he pushes his taste buds to the limit.

Every wondered why some people like the taste of burning hot chills.
Or strange foods like mouldy cheese Or why the smell of rotting flesh makes you gag.
Tonight we're going to find out how our twin senses of smell and taste keep us alive.
We'll be looking at how when it comes to food.
Humans have a high-risk strategy.

We'll put almost anything in our mouths.
Relying on our sense of taste to stop us from poisoning ourselves.
We'll be finding out why something's smell so good to us.
And others are totally disgusting.
And we'll be taking a whiff of the worlds worst smell.
Forty foot under the sea in the Bahamas.
We're here to do taste test.
How does the human sense of taste compare to other animals?
What will one of the world's most ferocious carnivores make of something we love to eat?
Sharks have a reputation for being the garbage cans of the sea.
But how do they measure up to us?
A fish head swallowed straight down.
Just what you'd expect.
But now we're going to give them something they don't normally come across, a chicken.
What will they make of a favourite human food?
Look ones taken the chicken, but there he spat it out.