Following Our Noses

The nose is smarter than we thought. In fact, it just won two Americans a Nobel Prize. Researchers Richard Axel of New York and Linda Buck of Seattle were chosen to receive this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Their citation says "for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system." Stated more simply, they discovered important details of "how we smell" -- how we detect odors via receptors in the nose and information processing in the brain and nervous system. The press release points out the sometimes life-or-death importance of the sense of smell. Newborn pups use it to locate their mothers' milk glands. Humans use odors "to identify suitable food and to avoid putrid or unfit foodstuff." Mosquitoes locate humans by detecting our odors, so the new research may someday prevent mosquito bites and malaria. Nobel judge Professor Sten Grillner commented, "Until Axel and Buck's studies, the sense of smell was a mystery." This year's laureates researched details of, in Axel's words, "how the brain knows what the nose is smelling," how it equips organisms "to detect food, predators, and mates." For two scientists, acting alone, to map one of the major human senses, from molecular to cellular level, is unique in the history of science. A "diverse repertoire of odorous molecules" excite some of the five million receptor cells in the nasal cavity. These cells generate coded electrical signals and send them to the brain. Ms. Buck adds an ironic observation: "You might have a rose and a skunk being recognized by some of the same receptors." But the brain deciphers those signals and goes on to distinguish ten thousand separate and distinct odors. Previous Nobel laureates have researched other senses and found equally stunning complexity. In 1981, laureates David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel investigated the sense of sight. They discovered nerve cells that adjust contrast, detect motion, and perform numerous specialized functions. To explain how the brain makes sense of signals from the retina, their work uses the analogy, " . . . as if certain cells read the simple letters in the message and compile them into syllables that are subsequently read by other cells, which, in turn, compile the syllables into words, and these are finally read by other cells that compile words into sentences" which proceed to the brain, where the visual impression originates. Nearly a century and a half ago, Charles Darwin conceded, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." He wrote botanist Asa Gray, "The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder." And Darwin didn't know nearly as much as we do about the sophistication of the signal processing from the eye and the nose. All of this leads to a logical closing question: If researchers earn Nobel Prizes for discovering such intricacies in our sensory organs, doesn't the Intelligent Designer of all of this intricacy deserve some recognition? For further reading and information: Visit the Nobel web page for the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/2004/ See the press release for the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/2004/press.html Richard Axel, "Scents and Sensibility: Towards a Molecular Logic of Perception," a lecture at Columbia University, 13 May 2004. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required.) http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_events/symposia/brain_mind/transcripts/bm1_axel.pdf http://www.adobe.com Stephen Jones, "The eye: Darwin's 'cold shudder'," 7 February 1998. See Darwin's letter to Gray. http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199802/0053.html http://charles-darwin.classic-literature.co.uk/the-life-and-letters-of-charles-darwin-volume-ii/ebook-page-31.asp "Richard Axel and Linda Buck Awarded 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine," Medical News Today, 25 October 2004. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=14458 Nick Klagge, "Richard Axel Sniffs Out Nobel Prize," Columbia Spectator, 5 October 2004. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/05/41622967eadb2 "Sci/Tech: Dr. Richard Axel & Linda Buck win Nobel Prize in Medicine," Boredguru.com, 5 October 2004. http://www.boredguru.com/modules/news/article.php?item_id=686 "Sensing Smell," Howard Hughes Medical Institute. http://www.hhmi.org/annual99/a243.html See the research abstract of "Representations of Olfactory Information in the Brain" provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/axel.html Visit BreakPoint's intelligent design information page. http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Issues_and_Research&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=81&ContentID=12086 See Chuck Colson's Ten Questions about Origins. http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Issues_and_Research&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=13128 Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Zondervan, 2004). http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=BreakPoint_Store&template=/Ecommerce/ProductDisplay.cfm&ProductID=457 The new DVD/video "The Privileged Planet" is a useful resource for students and teachers in learning about the evidence of design in the universe. http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=BreakPoint_Store&template=/Ecommerce/ProductDisplay.cfm&ProductID=463 http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=BreakPoint_Store&template=/Ecommerce/ProductDisplay.cfm&ProductID=464

11/19/04