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Sponsored by the Italian Academy and The Center for Science & Society, Columbia University April 13, 2017 Video Links:
Thanks to all the speakers & participants, the Italian Academy & the Center for Science and Society at Columbia. The Human Sense of Smell – Seminars in Society and Neuroscience Columbia University in the City of New York Date: April 13, 4:15 – 7:00 pm Location: Teatro at the Italian Academy, Columbia University, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY Program: 4.15 – 4.30 General Introduction: David Freedberg & Pamela Smith (Columbia University) 4.30 – 4.35 Introduction of Panel & Topic: Ann-Sophie Barwich (Columbia University) 4.35 – 5.00 Barry Smith (School of Advanced Study, University of London, Philosophy) 5.00 – 5.15 Clare Batty (University of Kentucky, Philosophy) 5.15 – 5.40 Donald Wilson (NYU, Neuroscience) 5.40 – 5.55 Avery Gilbert (Smell Scientist and Author) 6.00 – 6.15 Christophe Laudamiel (DreamAir, Perfumer) 6.15 – 7.00 Panel Discussion Free and open to the public. Reception to follow. For more information, please visit: http://scienceandsociety.columbia.edu/cssevent/human-sense-smell-seminar-society-neuroscience/ There are many myths about the human sense of smell. Most persistent are the views that our olfactory abilities are underdeveloped, declining, and lacking cognitive significance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Historically, the spice trade and the ongoing hunt for new flavors have shaped our modern socio-economic landscape. Today, 28 billion dollars are generated annually with fragrance products in the US alone (ranging from perfumes to scented trash bags). Many of these are deeply entwined with hygiene products responsible for improvements in public health. And over the past thirty years, neuroscientific interest in odor perception has been on a steady rise. Central to this development is the dominant role of smell in cross-modal processes of flavor perception. The crucial question here remains unresolved, however: How does our brain make sense of scents and flavors? To explore the human sense of smell in its perceptual, neural, and cultural dimensions, the panel brings together cross-disciplinary perspectives from neuroscience, philosophy, and perfumery.   There are many myths about the human sense of smell. Most persistent are the views that our olfactory abilities are underdeveloped, declining, and lacking cognitive significance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Historically, the spice trade and the ongoing hunt for new flavors have shaped our modern socio-economic landscape. Today, 28 billion dollars are generated annually with fragrance products in the US alone (ranging from perfumes to scented trash bags). Many of these are deeply entwined with hygiene products responsible for improvements in public health. And over the past thirty years, neuroscientific interest in odor perception has been on a steady rise. Central to this development is the dominant role of smell in cross-modal processes of flavor perception. The crucial question here remains unresolved, however: How does our brain make sense of scents and flavors? To explore the human sense of smell in its perceptual, neural, and cultural dimensions, the panel brings together cross-disciplinary perspectives from neuroscience, philosophy, and perfumery.
The Imitation Game: What does “Recognition” in Mechanisms of Molecular Recognition mean? Molecular recognition characterizes fundamental mechanisms of specific interactions between two or more molecules in biological systems. These mechanisms fulfill central functions such as the recognition of ligands by protein receptors and are modeled in terms of complementary structure-function relations. Despite growing data of protein structures, predictive regularities for recognition processes remain an unfulfilled promise. I analyze how recognition mechanisms have been modeled over the past 100 years and how the causal descriptions in these models changed. Moving away from specificity of fit, I show that we currently are experiencing a paradigmatic shift in understanding the nature of selectivity as the driving force in molecular interaction. PSA Online Program  Program for the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry 2016 meeting Abstract: Fashion fades, only Chanel No. 5 remains the same: A Chemical History of Style & Technology Perfume is more than mere personal adornment. It is a chemical record of style and technology. Underlying the story of modern perfumery is a history of chemical discoveries. While perfumery might be one of the two oldest professions in the world, it owns its modern character as a semi-scientific art to the discovery and development of synthetic materials. With the rise of synthetic chemistry at the end of the 19th century, perfumes turned into an object of reproduction. A new era of industrial perfumery was about to start once the “smelling principle” of one of the most fundamental scented materials was discovered: the synthesis of vanillin from coniferyl alcohol by Ferdinand Tiemann and Wilhelm Haarmann in 1874. Since then perfumery has turned into one of the largest parts of our modern socio-economic landscape. To date, in the US alone 25 billion dollars are made annually with the production of fragrant molecules for products such as detergents, shampoos, perfumes, or soaps. Key to modern perfumery is the design of new synthetic odorants (odorous molecules) as well as an understanding of the perceptual and social dimensions of fragrance preferences. The focus of my paper is to track the history of late 19th and 20th century perfumery as a history of chemical discoveries and a trajectory of benchmark scents. For this I am looking at the fragrant timeline from 1884’s Fougere Royale, using the newly synthesized coumarin, to the more recent classic of 1988’s Fahrenheit, incorporating methyl heptyne carboxylate. Blurring the boundary between what counts as natural and artificial in both a material and a perceptual sense, perfumery presents us with a domain that embodies several disciplinary identities: from being a guarded art and craft to turning partly into a techno-science. By using the invention of new chemicals as a historiographical tool, I analyze the generation of a chemical repertoire and the idea of benchmark scents in an increasingly techno-scientific context as constitutive of the special disciplinary identity of perfumery: a semi-science. I want to understand what characterizes semi-scientific practices that may further offer us a renewed perspective on the nature of science and its progression.  |
AuthorAnn-Sophie Barwich Archives
August 2017
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