Scientists have discovered a new smell, but you may have to go to a laboratory to experience it yourself.

The smell is dubbed "olfactory white," because it is the nasal equivalent of white noise, researchers report Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Just as white noise is a mixture of many different sound frequencies and white light is a mixture of many different wavelengths, olfactory white is a mixture of many different smelly compounds.






How many smells are there?

The scent researchers began their experiment by selecting 86 molecules that span the entire "olfactory stimulus space."

The team then combined these 86 basic elements of smell into mixtures to create individual smells.

Rather than increasing the differences among them, as more and more smells are added, the compounds become increasingly similar.

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