ANDRZEJ KRAUZEBananas. That’s what I thought I was when I realized that I couldn’t smell the fruit’s unique odor. Nor could I smell the obviously soured milk in my refrigerator or the exhalations of smokers on the city sidewalks. Gourmet meals were now wasted on me, where once I had loved teasing apart their flavors. This affliction went on for months, long enough for me to seek medical help, which ruled out anything awful but offered no cure. Only much later, after a course of antibiotics taken for something else, did my sense of smell return.
So why am I telling you this? Every November, The Scientist focuses on neuroscience, and we pick out some new and exciting developments in the field to zero in on. In choosing this year’s cover, we turned again to the artwork of Greg Dunn, a former neuroscientist whose stunning painting of pyramidal neurons graced our November 2013 cover. When looking through Dunn’s portfolio, his print of cell connections in an olfactory bulb glomerulus hit a nerve, so to speak. It reminded me of my bout of anosmia (not to mention our October 2013 issue devoted to olfaction research).
For this month’s issue, Notebook section editor Bob Grant had assigned two articles related to altered senses of smell. The first, by Senior Editor Kerry Grens, took ...
