Believe it or not, scientists still don't know how the sense of smell works. But they're looking at how powerful it is - dogs can actually sniff out cancer and many other diseases - and they're trying to figure out how to reverse engineer it. In fact, one MIT scientist may have built a robot nose ... without completely understanding how his invention works.

For further reading, sign up for the Unexplainable newsletter here: http://vox.com/unexplainable-newsletter

Unexplainable's transcript and articles at: http://vox.com/unexplainable

Article on quantum nose theory: https://bit.ly/3clurfs

Email the Unexplainable team! [email protected]

Support Unexplainable and Recode Daily by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices