Human Senses 1. Smell and Taste (12 of 21)

Human Senses

In the second half of the program we're going to unravel the secrets of our sense of smell.
Why something perfectly harmless can smell so bad to us that it makes us physically sick.
We'll be uncovering the biological reasons why we respond so strongly to bad smells.
When compared to some animals we have a very poor sense of smell.
Surely nothing can beat the delicate scent of blossom on a spring morning.
Well actually there is something.
The smells that really get up our noises aren't the nice flowery scents, but the really unpleasant ones like rotting manure.
So to understand what gets our sense of smell going we've need to get head for all the nastier smells out there.

To start our search for stinks we've come to New Mexico, for a show down with the smelliest animal in the West.
It 's the skunk.
We're going to test whether it's smell is as bad as it's cracked up to be.
With the help of Jerry Dragoo who rescues skunks nesting under people's houses.
A lot of people don't like them living under their house.
But they don't necessarily want them killed either.
So that's where we come in.
At his home outside Albercurky Jerry's got all sorts of skunks waiting to be returned to the wild.
This really brave volunteer has agreed to get covered in skunk spray.