The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2004
Species differences The area of the olfactory epithelium (red) in dogs is some forty times larger than in humans. Mice – the species Axel and Buck studied – have about one thousand different odorant receptor types. Humans have a smaller number than mice; some of the genes have been lost during evolution. There are several millions of olfactory receptor cells in our olfactory epithelium. |
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