• HonkyTonkWoman@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      “What’s your mutation? Teleportation? Laser Eyes? Weaponized Tornadoes?”

      “…I… I can smell ants… how about yours?”

      “Oh… well… my mutation is that cilantro tastes like chalk to me.”

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I was born with 2.5 kidneys, an extra ureter and 4 of my permanent teeth never showed up. Also mild colour vision deficiency.

        I was talking about it with our first lieutenant in the army and he went “Corporal, you’re a mutant!”. “Yes, sir, I am sir.”

      • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        God soap cilantro just sucks. I really wish people knew it tastes like gross to like 3-21% of the world population.

        I just wish it wasn’t automatically in anything Mexican. I just want to taste what other people taste. :(

        • FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          The weirdest thing happened when I was recovering from covid. I couldn’t really taste much, but cilantro suddenly had a perfume-like scent. It eventually went back to normal after I recovered, but I definitely have a healthy level of sympathy for people who taste soapy cilantro now

        • inefficient_electron@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Exposure therapy works for this. You can still detect the chemical that made it taste that way, but the brain can rewire to perceive it as pleasant. If you’re serious about fixing the problem, start by adding small amounts to dishes and work your way up as your tolerance changes.

          • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            That just sounds like brainwashing yourself to make something taste ‘good’ when it’s not. See Alcohol, black coffee, etc.

            • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Right, but I legitimately love the taste of coffee now. Am I wrong? I know I didn’t like it as a kid, but does that mean I was correct to not like it then or correct to like it now?

              I don’t know, but my instinct is that being able to enjoy the flavor of coffee is a real benefit. For instance, I can taste the nuance of coffee flavor in tiramisu. Without gaining an appreciation for coffee flavor, many foods that use that flavor would just taste bad.

            • inefficient_electron@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              There are no inherently good or bad flavours, it’s all just how our brains are wired to perceive them. Sometimes the wiring gets it wrong and warns us about a food that is harmless. I see no reason not to try fixing that.

              • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                There are no inherently good or bad flavours

                X is in the eye of the beholders are the worst.

                You can fool yourself into thinking shit tastes like sugar all you want but subjective reality and the reality your brain perceives should not be conflated lol.

                • inefficient_electron@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  Shit should taste bad though, given that it is bad for you to eat. This is not the case for cilantro, so why not retrain your brain to like it?

                  All I was offering is a strategy that has worked for me, and many other people. I used to hate cilantro and despised its omnipresence in certain cuisines. I can now enjoy these things and you possibly can as well, if you choose to do the work. If you’d prefer to whine instead of attempting to solve the problem you said you have, that’s on you.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              Those are more like your eyes adjusting to brightness/darkness. You’re not tricking yourself into thinking the alcohol taste or coffee bitterness are good, you’re desensitizing yourself to them, which lets you sense other flavors.

              Sometimes there’s no other strong flavors so you get “Huh, this cold brew concentrate tastes like water, I didn’t even add ice, try it” “wtf that is so bitter!!”

        • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          How do you know that cilantro tastes like soap and not soap tastes like cilantro.

          All I’m saying is that cilantro doesn’t taste that good and some soaps smell amazing.

    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The mortality ratio of that school gives me pause.

      Also, so many old white guys hanging on the wall.

  • Humana@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I have a friend who can smell cockroaches no joke. We always take her restaurant suggestions very seriously.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I can smell ants and cockroaches. I can also smell when someone has been in my house hours after they leave. Its annoying as hell to have this sense of smell since its considered rude to point out that someone stinks. To me its like they are screaming in a small room.

      • Lurker@lemmy.zip
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        6 months ago

        I recently had to close my store for an hour, because I was the only one working and couldn’t breath due to one customers bad hygiene. People treat me like I’m overly sensitive or making up my discomfort, but to me it feels like being suffocated.

        Also I can totally smell roaches, they smell worse than any other thing in existence. Never smelled an ant though. Did not know that was possible.

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          I recently had to close my store for an hour, because I was the only one working and couldn’t breath due to one customers bad hygiene.

          I don’t even have the greastest sense of smell, I might even consider it impaired, but personal experience begs me to suggest never applying at your local public library then.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Libraries are havens for unhoused people. They don’t have to pay to sit in the air conditioning and read a book.

            If we were a society about helping people we would have just installed showers at the libraries ages ago.

            • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I work at a library and they wouldn’t let us install them when we built a new building. We do though have a place nearby that lets people clean up but not stay there.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Did not know that was possible.

          Same, but I’m starting to think you need a pretty sizable infestation in a nearby wall for this to be a thing.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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            6 months ago

            Best way to get rid of bedbugs is by turning your house into a temporary sauna. Ensuring everywhere reaches some 50º Celsius will kill all the little fuckers.

        • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          In 95 I was staying at a hotel that had a D&D convention. I was with a group of union boilermakers and we got gripped at by the staff for refusing to allow some of those stinkers on the elevator with us.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            I’ve never actually been to an anime convention and had no idea how common anime fans with poor hygiene actually existing was until I read some of the horror stories when this was posted before.

            • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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              I would guess it’s just related to teenagers getting body odors and not knowing yet that they have to deal with them.

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          Yes it’s a fact that obese people smell worse than fit people, so if it was a marathon runners convention and everyone actually bathed daily, I’m sure going without deodorant wouldn’t be an issue. Too much fucking might be an issue if the majority of the women aren’t on hormonal birth control.

          But I think the issue with anime conventions isn’t lack of deodorant, it’s thinking a shower is something you take every 4-7 days, and ‘eww don’t touch your buttcrack to clean it, that’s nasty!’

          I may get flack from the twox crowd for this comment, but talking to my fiance was like talking to a guy when she got off hormonal birth control. Conversation is just… chill now.

          That’s probably the next big “oops, we fucked up bad the last 50 years, but men’s birth control is hard!”

        • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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          I take testosterone which makes my sense of pheromone smell increase like crazy (not just sweat, I can go into a truck stop late at night and tell if someone was in there somewhere and peed and how hydrated they were, or if someone just had sex in the shower in there… or just an orgasm.)

          Sometimes I’ll walk into our own house bathroom half an hour after my fiance left for work and get an overwhelming woah, she’s definitely on her period right now smell or conversely, “oh yeah, tonight could be a fun night.”

          Our oldest started showering in the mornings before school, and its become a subconscious game (I think, to him) of who can get in the shower first, because I do not want to smell his… shower… my entire shower.

          Humans are capable of absolutely incredible senses when they’re finely tuned. But our senses are so out of whack, literally, in so many different ways we barely have concepts or words for yet. We have known about, as one example, estrogen-raising chemicals being in plastics leeching directly into our bodies and soil and water and food supplies for over 30 years now (BPA), (when estrogen levels rise, testosterone levels lower, and vice versa. same is true for many core bodily systems). Then around 2010 they did a study that found some of these new lightly tested BPA-free alternative plastics released even more estrogen into the system than BPA did. How’s that for a chucklefuck

          Plastics, and then leaded gasoline, and then PFASs shortly after (or before) that… well, when a molecule or series of molecules is found that greatly benefits civilization in some way, people will die. People will sit under oath in front of the supreme court swearing they had no idea how harmful their products were.

          It’s very unfortunate, because the species are being modified in so many unforseen ways. Not just humans. Alex Jones got meme’d so hard for the chemicals are turning the fuckin’ frogs gay!

          I’m not sure what I’m ranting about now. I’m just sad for our species and those species affected by us and unable to do anything about it. It’s never as simple as it’s ALL profits and follow the money! because we’ve been able to make so much progress as humans through the use of breakthrough technologies like PFASs and plastic. But, at what cost? Our current methodology is to let the major corporations sell these new breakthrough molecules far and wide, and then in 5 years or 5 decades we start to see mainstream scientific acceptance that “okay, it’s really bad, we have to do something about this”…

          Sure, though, it did some good in the meantime.

          • Vincent Adultman@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Thanks high testosterone bro. Your comment made me remember when I was 18ish and would not drink soda, barely eat sugar, wake up to do exercises on the bedroom floor… That was my prime and for a reason. I’ll try to go by next month reducing my sugar intake at least and do pushups when I wake up, start challenging myself again.

            • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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              Take it or leave it but my advice (sometimes I take it sometimes I’m a hypocrite) but tomorrow never comes. Fuck next month. There is no reason for you to wait to eat less sugar. If it’s a matter of finances, get a head of romaine lettuce and some carrots and much away for a few days. Feel the sugar withdrawal as your body freaks out wondering what has changed and starts realigning those neurons. After a few days of that, a generic slice of sandwich bread will taste like cake. Use that wasted $30 of high sugar snacks and food as motivation to stop eating this poison. If it’s purely a waste issue, find the first homeless person you see and give them a big bag of high sugar food. Even if its frozen meals they’ll give them to their buddies and use the microwaves at a convenience store and eat like kings for day.

              Honestly, a big part of this comment was me talking to myself, but not about sugar. But if it helps you, I’m happy.

        • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I can smell when a woman has her period if I smell her skin, so not at any distance other than intimately. My best guess is all the hormonal changes alter pheromones from the normal and we can pick up on that.

          Not like it is a bad smell, just her normal natural scent changes.

          • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Oh yeah me as well. I can also smell when someone has a disease. I know cancer or at least the type my grandmother had but some of them I have no idea what is wrong with them. I can also differentiate different kinds of drugs.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I have a good sense of smell but…that sounds more like cripplingly good

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        6 months ago

        My sense of smell is very sensitive. Like I can detect people have been there by smell too, and often who it was. But I don’t think I’ve ever smelled ants or cockroaches. Thank god too.

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      I’m one of these people. I can smell an apartment roach infestation from the front door, every time.

      And yes, restaurants always get the “sniff check” before we sit down. No-go odors are:

      • bleach
      • pine-sol (amonia)
      • heavy perfume (think “Glade plugin-in”)
      • insects (roaches, etc)
      • pet odor (wet dog, litterbox)
      • sewage (usually a dry floor drain but that’s still not okay)
      • dingy carpet (think: “old movie theater”)

      The first two are obvious attempts at covering up something worse with “clean” smells, and/or the staff has no idea what “clean” actually means. And they obviously don’t care what olfaction means to someone trying to enjoy a meal, which says heaps about what they think food service actually is. Everything else just speaks to the “I don’t care what you smell” part, or there’s something very wrong with how the kitchen is run. /rant

      An example of a top-shelf dining odor experience? I once went to a Japanese restaurant at opening time. The only smell in the dining room was that of the specific kind of imported cedar in the cutting boards. This is traditionally cleaned with boiling hot water, and nothing else. This released a gentle woody and pine-y scent that just filled the space and invited the senses. I came hungry, but I sat down ravenous. The meal to follow was something I will never forget.

      Edit: some clarification since this got some traction. I know that bleach and ammonia are s-tier disinfectants and absolutely necessary for food prep, health standards, and the rest. I use this stuff at home. My issue is with establishments that utterly fail at ventilating these odor and spoil the dining experience with strong chemical odors. Looking deeper I find very strong cleaning odors (long after opening hours) suspicious since it’s very easy to splash stuff around, giving the impression of cleanliness, but not actually clean anything. Strong chemical smells also make it impossible to detect sewage, rot, mold, soil, and other things that would easily flag a restaurant. I’d rather not take the chance.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I can smell roaches and bedbugs. One is annoying. The second will cause me to flee a building in horror.

      I’ve also informed several friends that they were pregnant. They never believe me the first time.

    • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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      I assume people just can’t identify the smell of cockroaches until they learned it? Similar to people being oblivious to the smell of marijuana when not familiar with it.

      I’m not sure I would recognize the smell of roaches if I didn’t keep them as food for other animals. Stinky little buggers.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      TBF, there are lots of things with a smell similar to cockroaches. Some of them wouldn’t be a red flag to be found at a restaurant. Also, smells are very localized, and I doubt your friend walks through the kitchen.

      But yeah, I’ve gone away from restaurants because they smelled like cockroaches.

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Roaches do have a smell. Yuck. Ants though? There are so many different kinds of them, I can’t smell them, or I haven’t noticed if so.

      My lunatic ex had a nose like a bloodhound. He could smell anything.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      I don’t question your friend’s ability to smell cockroaches, but I gotta tell you, there is no restaurant without them. The best you can do is minimize.

      Roaches go where there’s food. That’s just a fact of life.

      • Stern@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I got the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene personally. Would much rather have gotten the, “Always remember where I left my car keys” gene, or maybe the, “Come up with witty retorts on the spot instead of two hours later in the shower” one.

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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          At least you don’t have my “sky-high cholesterol no matter what you eat” gene.

          Also artificial sweeteners have an unpleasant chemical aftertaste that lingers for a long time. Apparently that’s generic too…

          • zod000@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            TIL about the artificial sweetener thing, this explains a lot. I have never been able to understand people enjoying diet soda.

            • 01101000_01101001@mander.xyz
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              6 months ago

              Dude, same, and this is the first time I’ve heard of it. I thought the Diet Dr. Pepper commercials were just being cheeky when trying to compare it to dessert.

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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            My grandfather had low cholesterol no matter what. It was always perfect. This man ate more bacon and had more buttermilk and cornbread than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.

            I have to watch mine pretty closely. Well, I should, but I’ll just die horribly and early I guess. The alcohol will get me first anyway.

            • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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              Hah, my grandfather had heart problems and very high cholesterol so we gave him such a hard time for eating unhealthy food. But now I have been a vegetarian for almost twenty years (I try to avoid eggs and dairy too) and my cholesterol is just as high as his was, unless I take medications. So we should have just let him eat whatever he wanted to…

          • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 months ago

            I find that most sweeteners have the aftertaste, like Canderel and Sweetex, but Hermesetas taste fine. It might be worth trying a few brands and seeing if any work for you

          • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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            6 months ago

            Look at Triglyceride to HDL ratio from the basic test, cholesterol is mostly about statins these days (sugar/carbs in the past), which only help mortality in ppl who’ve had heart attacks. Look into it.

        • TurtleTourParty@midwest.social
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          I love cilantro, but I got the celery tastes bitter and spicy gene. So many people tell me it’s tasteless but it has a strong, terrible taste to me.

            • Duranie@literature.cafe
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              6 months ago

              Celery tastes like that too me as well, but no allergy. I can eat it with no negative effects, other than the fact that I’ve had to taste celery.

          • rudyharrelson@kbin.social
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            Celery man. Everyone tells me it has no taste, but to me it tastes like an entire lawn’s worth of grass clippings compressed into a stick. Extremely pungent.

            Same with cucumbers. They taste awfully strong and bitter to me.

            • The_v@lemmy.world
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              Look up the “TAS2R bitter taste receptor gene family”. It’s a fun little group of genes that control how well bitterness is detected.

              I am a moderate bitter taster. So I do not like celery (mildly unpleasant flavor) and prefer cucumbers that contain the recessive bi gene that stops the production of cucubitacin in the plant. The ones that contain the bt gene, the skin gets too bitter for me. This gene mostly stops the cucubitacin production in the fruit but not the plant.

            • Juice@midwest.social
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              Yeah I really don’t like celery. Cucumbers are pretty good if they’re peeled, but yeah they have a very strong taste to me, and the peel is very bitter

            • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              Your celery description seems apt to me, but for me it’s much less pungent. It’s actually super mild for me, so I don’t mind it. I actually quite like celery.

          • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
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            I think I have half of that gene (2/3, cilantro is nice), fresh celery tastes salty and spicy. If it’s old, then it tastes like water.

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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            Any time someone tells you something is “tasteless” you should feel free to discard all of their food opinions or give them a covid test

        • Juice@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          Cilantro tasted like soap to me until my wife described it as lemony, and it suddenly tasted different and now I like cilantro. Senses are weird

          • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Cognitive Modulation of Olfactory Processing: Neuron

            We showed how cognitive, semantic information modulates olfactory representations in the brain by providing a visual word descriptor, “cheddar cheese” or “body odor,” during the delivery of a test odor (isovaleric acid with cheddar cheese flavor) and also during the delivery of clean air. Clean air labeled “air” was used as a control. Subjects rated the affective value of the test odor as significantly more unpleasant when labeled “body odor” than when labeled “cheddar cheese.” In an event-related fMRI design, we showed that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)/medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was significantly more activated by the test stimulus and by clean air when labeled “cheddar cheese” than when labeled “body odor,” and the activations were correlated with the pleasantness ratings. This cognitive modulation was also found for the test odor (but not for the clean air) in the amygdala bilaterally.

            • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
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              6 months ago

              I think it’s great how a screenshot of comment about a tiktok video is leading to some pretty great discussion.

          • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            If I eat cilantro by itself and focus on the idea of it tasting like soap, I can kinds taste it. It still tastes good to me, just with a hint of soapiness. It’s not enough to ruin it for me, and I have to be looking for it.

        • pigup@lemmy.world
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          I love cilantro but one time I tasted the soap flavor. I had done a stir fry with cilantro and left the spoon in the still hot pot and there had been some cilantro stuck to the bottom of the spoon that sat there and cooked for as long as it took for the big pot to cool down. Then when I was doing dishes I picked up the spoon and I saw big bunch of cilantro so I ate it and it was horribly nasty and tasted like straight up hand soap. I thought for sure that some soap fell or splashed onto it but no it was just the cilantro. Never happened again either.

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        I have that! Sneezed twice today because of bright sunlight. It can sometimes also be triggered voluntarily by looking at a bright light. You can’t trigger it multiple times in a row though. I suspect this is because sinuses need to recover from the shock of the sneeze.

        • OfCourseNot@fedia.io
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          I can sneeze several times in a row if a light is bright enough. I’ve even triggered it just thinking of the sun, a few times.

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          6 months ago

          Yep same here! It’s nice when you feel a sneeze coming on and then it stops, you can kinda force it to happen!

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Wait that’s a genetic quirk? I do that shit all the time with “the sneeze that won’t sneeze”

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          6 months ago

          People used to make fun of me all the time for sniffing and saying “smells like it’s going to rain soon”. Couldn’t even tell you what it smells like… It just smells like the concept of it starting to rain

          I’ve met others who knew exactly what I was talking about, but not many

          • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Petrichor is after the rain, also an amazing smell! But sometimes there’s also a distinct note before summer rain starts. Similar to petrichor, but different.

      • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I have sunlight-sneezing, my thoughts are spoken word, I can read in dreams, the dress is gold, and I alway hear “laurel.”

        What others are there?

      • Webster@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I have a slightly different version of this. I get sneezing fits when too full. It’s genetic and happens to most people on one side of my family. Thanksgiving is always fun.

      • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I have the sunlight sneeze. I would much rather be able to smell ants.

        This feels like a shitty superpower what-if.

      • MisshapenDeviate@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        That’d be me. Nobody else I know does it, either. I try to explain it and they’re like “yeah, I try to look up at a light to help sneeze” and that’s just not it.

        • fiercekitten@lemm.ee
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          Wait, I’m not the only one?? Amazing!

          Me: – Seeing bright light – coughing – thinking certain sexy thoughts

          Brain: “Make her sneeze!”

      • Winter8593@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Wait I have that one! My dad has it too, but my brother doesn’t. All three of us are colorblind too lol.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The sneezing one must be an extreme case of our normal reactions, because I read years ago that if you’re on the verge of a sneeze, and it’s not happening, you should look at a bright light. 50% of the time, it works every time.

      • FlihpFlorp@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I have the sun sneezes

        Actually it also triggers if go from really dark to really bright like turning on the bathroom light at night

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      https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/61/2/85/1756864

      https://www.livescience.com/why-ants-smell-weird

      However, the sense of smell in humans is far less developed, and there has been recent controversy over what, exactly, the odorous house ant smells like. This species belongs to a large group of ants whose members are thought to smell like blue cheese (Forney and Markovetz 1971) [link is direct 3.0 mb .pdf download from elsevier], yet numerous online sources report their odor as “rancid butter,” “cleaning solution,” or, most commonly, “rotten coconuts.”

      Specifically, the house hippo ant.

      *The actual factual paper was actually literally published in 2015, no cap.

      • Deebster@programming.dev
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        At the same time, Penick had people rate what they thought the ant smelled like. Most people said blue cheese, but some thought it smelled like rotted coconut. So Penick rotted a coconut in his backyard and found a mold growing on it that, sure enough, is the same mold (Penicillium roqueforti) that’s used to produce blue cheese. Another mystery, solved.

        So American house ants, rotten coconuts and blue cheese all smell the same. Life is weird.

      • xwolpertinger@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Me who spent months taking Tupperware boxes full of cockroaches out of the freezer and separating them by hand because our ants were picky eaters: I still smell them, to this day.

        Thanks ants. Thants.

      • crawancon@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        yikes. how do you react when you get a whiff? is it already too late and you don’t smell them until they are next to you, or is it a general “oh wow you have a roach prob in this house”

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          if its in my room, that shitling better gtfo my place. if they just arrived i can usually smell them when theyre around 1m off me. but if they been chilling in the room i can smell them once i enter the room. imagine like walking little turd. the more they are the worse the smell.

    • snapoff@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      The smell like pepper to me. Well, you know how when you crush bricks or rocks it kinda has a peppery smell? It’s that pepper scent.

      • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de
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        what bricks are you crushing mon

        maybe it’s smell of dust, like what you can smell on dusty unpaved road in summer

        • snapoff@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Nah it’s specifically when they’re crushed. Not gravel smells, that smells different. You never crushed a rock or a brick?

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I have, many times, and I don’t think I would describe the smell as “pepper.” It is sharp though.

    • scottywh@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      100%

      I can smell them to the point I know when an area has an abundance of ant hills.

    • Almrond@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I can, they also taste absolutely abhorrent and ruin food they are in for me. It’s a very bitter chemical taste and smell.

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    6 months ago

    Holy shit I thought I was either full of shit or a mutant freak. I’m happy to be a mutant freak.

    I feel so validated right now you guys have no idea.

    • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      This! I used to tell people all the time I could smell some ant hills from several yards away. Fire ants smell like death. The larger and more aggressive species in my area smell more than the more benign ants. I’m sure it’s a warning to other animals to stay away.

  • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This just tells me ant particles are constantly flying into my nose and mouth and I don’t have receptors for them. Gross

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    6 months ago

    It’s like me figuring out after 23 years that most people don’t sneeze looking at the sun

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    Wait are you telling me y’all actually don’t smell ants? They’re a weird and kinda smell like blue cheese. Definitely the smellier of insects.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      The only time I’ve smelt ants is when they get crushed. Are you telling me you could smell an ant trail just by walking into a room?

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        Are you telling me that if you step on an ant and crush it, you can smell it?! Wtf is going on in this thread??

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            Ladybugs have a weird smell when you handle them. Smells a bit like earwax.
            Also, from the time when I hatched flies as food animals, flies really stink but you don’t normally notice because you don’t smell it when it’s just one. Put 100 flies in a bucket and they STINK.
            No idea what’s going on with the ants though. I’m still not convinced this isn’t a hoax.

        • childOfMagenta@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          I mean, I don’t think I can smell them as described, but crushed I can clearly smell the formic acid.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I don’t mean just stepping on an ant. I mean when you were little and climbing a tree or playing on the ground and crushed some ants, smelled your hand to figure out what it was, and it smelled like ants…

    • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      Never in my life has an ant had any smell whatsoever. I was today years old when I realized people could smell ants.

      In fact, I’ll go one step further. I grew up on a farm, tons of bugs. The only bug that I can ever remember smelling are those stupid Asian stink bugs invasive thingies that seem to have proliferated in the northeast US recently. When you squish them, they smell like green apples.

      I can’t think of any other bug that smells at all - even when they are squished.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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        I’m convinced these people are just making it up, I’ve been alive nearly 40 years and not once heard of this being a thing.

        • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          I mean, they probably DO smell - but like I’ve never gotten on my hands and knees and sniffed any bug up close. Maybe these people are more sensitive to smells and can pick them up yards away - or a whole colony?

          But ya it’s weird that I’ve never heard of this at all. I had heard of people born with tails or horns, females with beards, color blindness, tiger stripes on skin, the asparagus thing, rain man, hemaphrodites, on and on…

          But today I learned ants smell ;)

      • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        Ya on the floor, outside smells like bugs a bit too (and dirty and a million other things).

      • scottywh@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I can smell ant hills that are far enough that I can’t see them from an open car window.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Formic acid does really smells like steel tastes. But I’d blame the nickel for the taste, iron tastes differently.

  • xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Ant smell is for communicating with other ants. These are ant smellers not human. The ant-people have been controlling our governments. It’s true! Look it up!

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    6 months ago

    Mine has always been vision and hearing hard sounds, like doors closing. I can hear all the stupid little sounds like that. And I’m just weirdly good at deciphering shadows at night as long as there’s some light.

    I’m sure in ancient times this variation of who has good senses for what served a purpose.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    Probably similar to that “bitterness” test that a lot of kids got to do in science class where you taste that little strip of paper. To some it’s nothing, to others it’s very bitter. Genetics has given some the extra “taste”, supposedly that might allow people to avoid eating poisonous things containing oxalates or glucosinates. Unfortunately it also means you probably dislike things lie IPA beers or other foods that have bitter compounds that don’t bother others.

    • H4mi@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Some people can see images and hear voices inside their heads…

      • erin (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        It really fucked me up when I realized that “picture this” wasn’t an entirely figurative saying, and everyone else does actually see stuff in their “mind’s eye.”

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            I can do that too. You’re misunderstanding the concept. I’m perfectly capable of drawing, eyes closed or not (though it’s much harder eyes closed, obviously). I do digital art. I just conceptualize things differently. I don’t have a mental image, it’s more like a knowledge of what shapes go together to make certain forms. I build things piece by piece from fundamental shapes that I analytically know make certain objects or creatures, but I don’t have an image of what it is until I have actually put it down in paper.

            I don’t know if I worded that in a way that makes sense, as I’ve always struggled with explaining how I conceptualize to people that have an ability I don’t. I know what shapes make up a dog, but I can’t see the dog, if that makes any sense.

          • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Your “eyes clothes” typo was so unexpected it got me good. I couldn’t stop giggling for a solid minute. My partner asked me what was so funny and I gasped out “eyes clothes” and she just sighed and walked away.

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          Do you think you could learn how to see in your head? I remember learning how to see 3d in drafting class, I bet you could learn how to see in your thoughts. Like maybe look at something, like a t-shirt, and closing your eyes, then opening them and see if you can continue picturing it? Just a thought, because like I said, I learned how to see 3d.

          • erin (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            6 months ago

            No, certainly not. It’s a condition known as aphantasia, and isn’t something that can be cured with practice. I have a lifetime of practice in conceptualizing in a different way though. I don’t feel that I’m missing out on anything really, just experiencing the world differently. I didn’t even know that I was any different than most until I was an adult, and a friend of mine made me realize it.

            Someone with aphantasia might be able to learn how to conceptualize in a different way, but I don’t think you can train what’s not there, any more than a blind person could train themselves to see. There isn’t a lot of study into it though, and I’ve found it difficult to get solid information on my condition, so perhaps there’s more to learn. Why, for example, do I have a very vivid imagination of sounds? I can imagine an entire song in all of its different instruments as if I could hear it, but I can’t even conceive even a little bit of what it means to see something in my head.

            I’ve had it explained to me very often by people with varying degrees of sincerity or understanding, and I still don’t quite get it. Is it like dreaming, or like a hallucination, or like an image you can’t really see but still know is there? It’s foreign to me, and no description I’ve heard makes it clear. I dream quite clearly and in color, but that’s like I’m there experiencing it in person. I’d love to learn more about aphantasia, especially since my fiancée has the opposite, hyperphantasia, and it would be nice to more easily collaborate as artists.

            • erin (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              What others have found interesting in the past is how I conceptualize spaces around me, especially when imagining things like my DnD campaign that I run. I don’t see things in my head visually, but more have a general special sense of them. I don’t need to visualize my foot or my hand to know where it is. I don’t need to visualize the wall of my room that I’m very familiar with; even with my eyes closed I know my relative position in the space and can find the light switch in the dark, or the fan. It’s the same for my spacial reasoning. I can navigate the world perfectly fine, or conceptualize a fictional DnD battle, not visually, but more like through touch, though that’s not exactly the sensation. I cannot rotate the proverbial cube in my mind, but I can conceive of what another face might feel like, and, if it’s not too TMI, I have a very good mental map of my fiancée’s body, and could draw her accurately, even if I can’t see her.

              • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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                6 months ago

                Thanks for explaining so clearly. I hope someone does their thesis on this stuff, it really is fascinating.

                I don’t know if you’re familiar with drafting, but when you draw elevations, it’s a flat version of 3d objects. I couldn’t really read a map until after I learned how to read elevations. You’re sort of pushing through and bringing forward objects from a flat drawing. It’s also a section, so it’s cut through a certain point of a floor plan. I could understand floor plans easily for some reason, but elevations and details were super hard. Then something clicked and I could read maps and all of the different types of drawings. I even remember where I was. Our brains are wild.

            • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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              6 months ago

              There were some recent studies that early childhood trauma can cause it, which would explain why I suffer from aphantasia. Or I’m “lucky” to just inherit the bad genes.

              And funny enough, my partner also has hyperphantasia.

              A random thought, one thing that recently occurred to me, I often forget were I’ve placed things, that’s because usually people just picture where they’ve seen them. At least my partner does that.

              • erin (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                6 months ago

                Fascinating. I do have a lot of childhood trauma, though I wouldn’t consider it “early” childhood. And I do misplace things often, though that might be more due to ADHD or my general scatterbrained forgetfulness.

            • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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              Someone with aphantasia might be able to learn how to conceptualize in a different way, but I don’t think you can train what’s not there, any more than a blind person could train themselves to see. There isn’t a lot of study into it though, and I’ve found it difficult to get solid information on my condition, so perhaps there’s more to learn. Why, for example, do I have a very vivid imagination of sounds? I can imagine an entire song in all of its different instruments as if I could hear it, but I can’t even conceive even a little bit of what it means to see something in my head.

              That is so fascinating. I think I understand now, I probably couldn’t train myself to do the sound thing. I asked a friend with what you have to tell me what his home looked like growing up and he said it was white. I asked him if he could picture that home when he said it and he told me that no, it was like memorizing times tables, it’s just a fact. It blows my mind how our brains work.

              As far as collaborating on the art, don’t discount the sounds, you could focus on that and your fiance could focus on the visuals. What a cool blend of talents.

              • erin (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                Thank you for your genuine curiosity! I like talking about things like this, and it’s nice to not be confronted by people telling me I’m wrong about my own mind. As far as my fiancée, we do collaborate using music as well! I’m a musician and play dozens of instruments, all of which I hang around our house among her drawings and paintings. We like to mix her animation and my music.

                • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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                  6 months ago

                  There are so many quirky things about humans, I would never tell you you’re wrong. I want your sound thing and to keep my visual thing, lol. I was hoping we could learn like that guy who went blind and learned echo location.

          • lepinkainen@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Books are fine. You just need to find authors who don’t spend two pages describing someone’s clothes, as you won’t remember anything past “pretty tall and dark haired”

            • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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              6 months ago

              Exactly that! Wish I knew I had this condition in high school when I was forced to read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. It was a torture I’d happily pass.

          • erin (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            6 months ago

            I love reading, and I love writing and storytelling. I think books can be for anyone. I wouldn’t let a difference in perception preclude you from enjoying an entire form of media, entertainment, and information. For me, audiobooks work best to hold my attention, as I struggle to sit and read words in front of me without keeping myself busy. It’s not a fit for everyone, and not everyone will like reading, but I think it’s a very simple joy that so many people have had hammered out of them by bad parents, bad teachers, or bad education systems that taught them to dread or hate books and reading. I got back into reading as an adult, and it’s one of the most fulfilling parts of my day.

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    Gotta love how they see a video talking about it, with comments talking about it, and their first step is to post on Facebook asking about it before doing a simple search on their own.

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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    6 months ago

    Same as asparagus wee. Man, when anyone has eaten asparagus I can smell it before I enter the door to the bathroom. When I have eaten it myself, I’m partly horrified and partly morbidly fascinated. What the fuck is up with only some people being able to smell it.