Humans have an incredibly acute sense of smell, but a new study shows that our perception of odors is dramatically reduced when we're snoozing. Researchers at Brown University published a paper in the journal Sleep showing that individuals slept right through the introduction of intense scents indicative of fires. A moderately loud sound woke people right away though.
"As the saying goes," said the paper's co-author Mary A. Carskadon, "we 'wake up and smell the coffee,' not the other way around."
Still, I wonder if this is because we're trained from a young age to respond to buzzing, radio-blaring alarms. It would be fun to have an alarm clock that at a pre-set hour spewed a refreshing blast of peppermint! Link
