Hey everyone, this is Dylan Matthews, but this is not an episode of Future Perfect.

This is a new science show from Vox called Unexplanable.

If you like Future Perfect, I think you'll like this show too. It hits on themes we love.

So, for instance, the episode I'm about to play you is about designing a robot nose,

and why that's actually really important and really, really hard.

But Unexplanable is also a show about intellectual humility and the joys of exploring the unknown.

It's also just generally a good time. It's a lot of fun to listen to.

Anyway, have a listen, and if you like what you hear, subscribe to Unexplainable wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Unexplainable. I'm Noah. I'm Hassenfeld hanging out here with our senior science reporter Brian Resnick. Hey. So this is a show about Unambalplainable. I'm Noah Hassenfeld, hanging out here with our senior science reporter, Brian Reznik.

Hey. So this is a show about unanswered scientific questions. And Brian, I wanted to talk to you because when we were initially talking about topics we might want to cover on the show, you told me there

was this mystery you wanted me to look into about the nose. Yeah, I haven't done any research on this

myself, but I do remember seeing a YouTube video that it was going on about how smell is just

still a mystery. Yeah, we still don't know everything about how smell works, and it's kind of

shocking because it's a pretty basic thing to not fully understand.

Yeah, it's like one of the five senses you learn in elementary school.

Yeah, and as I looked into this over the last couple weeks, I realized this isn't just a fun mystery to solve.

If we could solve this mystery, we could actually save lives because cancer has a smell.

I've never smelled it.

Well, we can't smell it, but dogs can.

I'm sitting here with actually four biodeection dogs.

I talked to a scientist who's a particularly big dog fan, Dr. Claire guest.

If you hear them in the background, it's because they've been for a nice long walk,

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