Page 31 - The Miracles of Smell and Taste

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these matters. No doubt the structure in the nose has been specially creat-
ed to perceive odors, and is a yet another sign of the omniscience of God,
its Creator. Every detail you will learn throughout these pages represents
a proof of this flawless design and perfect creation.

Indeed, in the Qur’an God has revealed this harmony and flawless-
ness that can be seen everywhere on Earth:
He Who created the seven heavens in layers. You will not find any
flaw in the creation of the All-Merciful. Look again—do you see any
gaps? Then look again and again. Your sight will return to you daz-
zled and exhausted! (Surat al-Mulk: 3-4)

Theories of Scent Perception

You wake up in the morning to delightful aromas emanating from
the kitchen. Even as you think to yourself, How good that smells, you are
unaware of all the processes going on inside your nose. But just what is
happening in your nasal cells at that moment?
Scientists have been trying to answer this question for many years,
but have still failed to fully unravel how the scent- perception cells recog-
nize particles in the air. What they do know goes no further than theory.
Indeed, less is known about scent perception than about our other senses. 13
At present, one of the most widely accepted theories, first proposed by
R.W. Moncrieff, is known as the steric theory, according to which, scent par-
ticles come in different shapes and sizes, and combine with receptors
unique to them in the olfactory region. The relationship between the recep-
tors and the scent particles is comparable to that between a lock and a key.
In the same way that a lock can be opened only by a particular key, so scent
receptors go into action as a result of the effect of certain molecules only.
John E. Amoore developed this theory further, and determined sev-
en main smells, which he termed ether, camphor, musk, flower, mint,

Harun Yahya
(Adnan Oktar)