- Olfaction
- The sense of smell — detecting airborne molecules through olfactory receptors and reading them as scent. Read more →
- Olfactory receptor (OR)
- A protein that binds odor molecules. Humans have close to 1,000 OR genes — the largest gene family in the genome — of which roughly 400 are functional. Read more →
- Combinatorial code
- How smell achieves its range: each odor switches on a particular combination of receptors, so a few hundred receptors can distinguish a vast world of smells. Read more →
- Ectopic (extra-nasal) olfactory receptor
- An olfactory receptor expressed outside the nose — in skin, gut, kidney, heart and blood — where it reads the body’s own chemistry rather than the air’s. Read more →
- GPCR
- G-protein-coupled receptor — the large receptor class olfactory receptors belong to, and the target of about a third of all approved medicines. Read more →
- Chemoreception
- Sensing the chemical environment. The most ancient form of perception, shared across every kingdom of life. Read more →
- Volatilome
- The complete set of volatile molecules a body emits — the volatile fraction of the metabolome — carried in breath and on the skin. Read more →
- VOC (volatile organic compound)
- A small, easily evaporated carbon molecule. The breath and skin release hundreds, reflecting the body’s metabolism. Read more →
- FeNO
- Fractional exhaled nitric oxide — a standard clinical breath test that reads airway inflammation directly from the breath. Read more →
- Chemosignal
- A chemical cue carried in body odor that conveys information — such as emotion, identity or kinship — to another person. Read more →
- Pheromone
- A species-wide chemical signal that evolved to carry a specific message. Despite popular belief, no human pheromone has ever been validated. Read more →
- Anosmia / Hyposmia
- Total (anosmia) or partial (hyposmia) loss of smell — an early sign of conditions from Parkinson’s to infection. Read more →
- 2-Nonenal
- An aldehyde that appears in body odor after roughly age forty and rises with age — the chemistry behind a scent shifting over a lifetime. Read more →
- ABCC11
- A gene whose common variant determines a person’s body-odor type — and, by the same switch, whether earwax is wet or dry. Read more →
- Skin microbiome
- The community of bacteria living on the skin that actually produce body odor, by cleaving odorless precursors in sweat. Read more →
- Evidence tier
- SHEMIM’s reader-facing label for how settled a claim is — from Established (robust, peer-reviewed), through Documented · early and Emerging (real but preliminary), to open questions held openly — shown on every load-bearing statement so evidence is never blurred with inference. Read more →
Every term, traceable to evidence.
SHEMIM’s research is organised so each idea can be followed to its source and its evidence tier.