Why are some substances odorless and tasteless?
In: Chemistry
Our bodies evolve to detect chemical compounds which are either useful to us or common and dangerous. Taste and smell are basically caused by nerve endings sensitive to certain types of chemicals (sugar on your tong will excite certain types of receptors and tell your brain you are tasting sugar). So tasteless odorless substances are typically things that either don’t contain anything useful for the body, or something harmful that is no common enough that we evolved a sense of smell/taste for it.
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