How do we decipher certain smells from one another, even if we’ve never smelled them before?

Question

For example: how can I tell that what I am smelling is food, versus say, a plant or a chemical?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Your nose has a whole bunch of cells with hairs called cilia that have receptors for each different molecule we can smell. When a particular odorant reaches a cilia it triggers a chemical reaction that becomes a nerve impulse which heads to your brain. Your brain will then do its best to make sense of each of those odorants.