Question: does this put an end to Luca Turin's vibration theory?
I realize that this has long been considered crackpottery, and there has never been a reasonable sense of a mechanism for it. But it did seem to offer at least a stab at a couple of questions that didn't have good answers in the ordinary lock-and-key model of olfaction, such as why sulfur-containing molecules all smell "sulfury" if they all unlock different locks.
As far as I can tell the idea sorta just died out. A lot of work was done trying to make odor molecules with different isotopes, with intriguing but inconclusive results.
Still, I've been kinda curious to see if the theory was finally over and done.
I realize that this has long been considered crackpottery, and there has never been a reasonable sense of a mechanism for it. But it did seem to offer at least a stab at a couple of questions that didn't have good answers in the ordinary lock-and-key model of olfaction, such as why sulfur-containing molecules all smell "sulfury" if they all unlock different locks.
As far as I can tell the idea sorta just died out. A lot of work was done trying to make odor molecules with different isotopes, with intriguing but inconclusive results.
Still, I've been kinda curious to see if the theory was finally over and done.