BBC 6分钟英语 为什么气味让我们有宾至如归的感觉

6 min English from BBC learning

english dot com. A Hello. This is six minute English from BBC Learning English.

I'm Phil, and I'm Beth. Phil.

What makes home special for you?

Maybe it's sleeping in your own bed, the view from the window or a loved family pet.

What makes you feel like

your home? Phil You know what?

I think its just relaxing on my sofa in my living room.

Very nice. Um. Well, you might not realize it, but for your brain, one of the strongest identifies of home is smell.

Listen as BBC presents as Marnie Chesterton and Tristan Arton describe the smells which give them the feeling of home.

My granddad's house smelt of pine and damp and musty books.

I know my mom's perfume, my dad preferred soap.

In this program, we'll be finding out why our sense of smell is so important to feeling at home, even when we don't notice it, as always, will be introducing some useful new vocabulary, and if you head over to our website, bbc learning english dot com, you'll find a transcript of the program to read along with as you listen, and there's a free worksheet, too.

Good idea, beth. But now it's time for my question.

The sense of smell is incredibly powerful, but not everyone has it.

A small amount of the population is anosmic, meaning they can't smell.

So according to research at the University of Reading, what percentage of people have no sense of smell?

Is it A 2 %? B, 5% or C 7 %?

Oh, I'm going to say be 5 %.

Well, we'll find out the correct answer later in the program.

Have you ever come back home from holiday and noticed a strange smell in your house?

If you have, don't worry. It's not bad.

In fact, there's a scientific reason for it.

As science writer Tristan Arson explained to BBC World Service program Unexpected elements.

One thing I've been thinking about is that every house or home has, well, a smell to it.

You might really notice this in your own home, when you come back from a long trip and you step through your front door and things smell well, just kind of a bit weird.

While there's a good chance your house might smell strange because it's been closed up for a few weeks, there's also a chance you might be smelling your home as it usually smells, but you just don't notice it when you're there.

Triston says that when you return home after being away, there's a good chance your house smells weird, an adjective, meaning strange or unusual.

If you say there's a good chance that something will happen, you mean there's a high likelihood or probability of it.

The truth is that every home has a smell, although we're so used to it, we usually don't notice when we breathe in.

Receptor cells in the nose, detect molecules in the air and send them to old factory organs in the brain.

These analyzed the smells for danger.

The reason you can't smell your own home is that it isn't a threat to you.

His science writer Triston art on again explaining more to BBC World Service Program Unexpected elements.

Well, by filtering out common, non threatening smells, it makes it easier to detect things out of the ordinary that might be dangerous.

So, e.g. if you forget about your toast and it starts to burn, you can typically smell that quickly, because it's a change to the environment that you're in, then the other parts of your brain kick in to understand the smell of smoke as a potential harm or threat.

But even if we can't smell our own homes, the scent of them still matters, because it's entangled with our recognition of comfort and security.

By filtering out familiar smells, our brains are able to detect other smells which are out of the ordinary, unusual or uncommon, and which may be dangerous.

To filter something out means to remove or separate something unwanted from something else.

E.g. filtering out the smell of home means we notice the smell of burning toast or other smells, alerting us to possible danger.

Even though we don't usually notice the scent.

The particular smell of our home is still has an effect on the brain's limbic system, which handles memory and emotion.

This explains why smell has such a strong effect on our feelings, and why we feel comfortable and safe at home.

Right? Phil isn't it time to reveal the answer to your question?

Yes, it is. I asked you what percentage of the population is a nosmic, that means they can't smell, and the answer is B

5 %, which is what you said.

I think it is. Yeah, well done.

OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned in this program, starting with a nosmic meaning having no sense or a limited sense of smell.

The adjective weird means strange, odd or bizarre.

When someone says there's

a good chance something will happen, they mean it's quite likely to happen.

The phrase out of the ordinary means unusual, uncommon or exceptional.

If you filter something out, you remove or separate something unwanted from a substance.

And finally, ascent is a distinctive smell, often a pleasant one, although it can also mean the smell made by an animal.

Once again, as 6 min are up, but if you enjoyed listening to this program, you'll find many more along the worksheet, with a quiz you can try on our website, bbc learning english dot com.

See you there soon. English from BBC learning english dot com.

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