Ekin Erkan reviewed "Smellosophy" for Perception. 

He nailed it in the Dennett sense: expressing an idea in such a way that the author goes... could not have written it better. And... would love to have written it like that myself. 

I gave a short (15 min) talk at AChemS as part of a symposium on its founder Max Mozell.

​Mozell's chromatographic theory: A molecular basis of cognitive behavior? 

Max Mozell's chromatographic theory, he told me for an interview in 2018, never was completed. His hypothesis states that the mucosa in the nasal epithelium yields a spatially differentiated pattern of odorants with different sorptive rates. Mozell formulated this idea before the olfactory receptor discovery in 1991 and the availability of genetic techniques that allow for target-specific probing of olfactory sensory neurons. His theory does not find many adherents in contemporary olfactory research, now focusing on decoding the stimulus with machine learning and neural principles with optogenetics. Notwithstanding, there are good reasons to reengage with Mozell's theory and translate some of its critical tenets into the 21st century. This talk highlights Mozell's interest in linking sniffing behavior to a molecular physiological mechanism at the periphery. It asks: What questions about the olfactory process did Mozell's theory address that may still be of value today? 

(Video below)

I was interviewed on smell and COVID, alongside Barry C. Smith and Chrissi Kelly (AbScent), in the New Statesman. 

Link to article: Searching for sense: what we lose when smell deserts us

I was recently interviewed  by Alexis Papazoglou for The Philosopher & The News.

​Check it out here!

“Certain wines have some qualities that are distinctive…You’re training your brain to recognize certain odor profiles. it’s deductive smelling, almost like Sherlock Holmes." ​

Unexplainable, the new Vox Podcast on things we don't know (yet) - starting to air THIS WEDNESDAY. 

​First Episode: The Sense of Smell
Feat. Claire Guest on Medical Detection Dogs, Andreas Mershin in the Nanonose (bioelectronic noses!), and me on the still open questions in the science of smell! 

I talk with Ambarish Satwik about Smellosophy.

TODAY, Tuesday, 23rd February. TIME : 2:30 PM IST | 4:00 AM EST VIRTUAL VENUE : Durbar Hall

Register & watch here: JLF LINK

Read about JLF and its featured books (including Smellosophy) in The New Indian Express.

I talk together with Charles Ludington, a historian of both wine and cheese (at NC State), about wine. Its history and the materality that we perceive when we drink a good glass... and what happens in the mind-brain thereafter. 

​Yesterday I woke up and decided to write about the take aways from interviewing scientists for my book (on my regular Blog "Molecules to Mind" for Psychology Today).

(One of my book reviewers had encouraged me to do so and gave me the idea. That was 2018 ... and I never got around it. Until now. There is, of course, much MUCH more to say. But it is a start. And intentionally a short piece for now: a distilled version of what to keep in mind when making conversation as an interviewer. Quick coffee length writing. I hope you enjoy it!)
​
Link --> "Listen more, Talk Less: How to Make Conversation"

"Barwich takes us deeper into the human stories, key advances, and dead ends of olfaction science....to build a comprehensive picture of the current state of research, while offering rich historical context"

Barbara Kiser reviews Smellosophy in tandem with 3 other books on smell ("Nose Dive" by Harold McGee, "Smell: A Very Short Introduction" by Matthew Cobb, and "Smells: A Cultural History of Odours in Early Modern Times" by Robert Muchembled)

Link to her review in --> Issues in Science and Technology