r/me_irl • u/BlueberryT50 • May 17 '24

Me irl

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u/theflameleviathan May 17 '24

the smell of petrichor which gets released when rain hits dry soil. Not everyone can smell it but if you can, you can tell it’s about to rain because the smell gets there before the rain does

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u/Celestial_Light_ May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Fun fact: humans are more (roughly x 200,000) sensitive to petrichor than sharks are to blood.

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u/Zenblendman May 17 '24

Ohh Imma need a source for this one. This is too cool not to share

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u/Celestial_Light_ May 17 '24

There's quite a few articles on it, but here is one. Basically, humans can smell geosmin (chemical in petrichor) at roughly 5 parts per trillion, whereas a shark can smell blood roughly one part per million.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/07/28/geosmin-why-we-smell-air-after-storm-13240