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Many animals from sharks to elephants are amazing at smell, but the ones that I think are closest to us and that we think of most often as olfactory champions are dogs.
从鲨鱼到大象，许多动物的嗅觉都很惊人，但我认为与人类最接近的，也是我们最常认为的嗅觉冠军是狗。
The things that dogs can do with their noses are truly extraordinary.
狗狗能用鼻子做到的事情非常了不起。
They can tell identical twins apart by smell.
它们可以通过嗅觉区分同卵双胞胎。
They can tell the direction a person has walked in by sniffing the footsteps that remain behind.
它们嗅嗅脚印就能判断一个人前进的方向。
They have been trained to detect drugs, obviously, but also everything from electronics to the scat of big predators.
很明显，人们训练狗狗去检测毒品，但它们也能检测从电子设备到大型捕食者的粪便等任何东西。
You have dogs with like goggles and snorkels sitting on the prowess of boats sniffing away for the scent of whales.
我们会看到戴着护目镜和通气管的狗坐在大船上嗅着鲸鱼的气味。
All of these things, I think, are like incredible party tricks, right?
所有这些，我认为，就像派对把戏一样不可思议，对吧?
They make us 'gasp' and 'wow' at the amazing abilities of dogs, but I think that the things they can do with smell are extraordinary in a much more everyday way.
这些让我们对狗狗惊人的能力赞不绝口，但我认为它们用嗅觉做的事情在日常生活中更不寻常。
I'm Ed Yong. I'm a science writer at "The Atlantic," and I'm the author of "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us."
我是艾德·杨。我是《大西洋月刊》的科学作家，也是《一个巨大的世界：动物感官如何揭示我们周围隐藏的领域》一书的作者。
So to learn more about how dogs smell the world, I wanted to talk to an expert who's really thought hard about the olfactory world of dogs.
为了进一步了解狗是如何嗅探这个世界的，我和一位认真思考过狗的嗅觉世界的专家谈了谈。
And there's none better than Professor Alexandra Horowitz at Columbia University.
没有人比哥伦比亚大学的亚历山德拉·霍洛维茨教授更合适了。
She's a psychologist who works with dogs, who has dogs of her own, and has written extensively about their noses and their sense of smell.
她是一名研究狗的心理学家，她自己也养狗，她写过大量关于狗的鼻子和嗅觉的文章。
So I met her and her Lab mix, Finn, at Columbia.
所以我在哥伦比亚大学认识了她和她的拉布拉多混血芬恩。
She showed me some of the experiments that she's done with Finn, and we went for a long walk around a nearby park.
她给我看了一些她和芬恩一起做的实验，我们在附近的公园里散步聊了很长时间。
And the walk is really important because Alexandra has this strong belief that dogs should be allowed to be dogs.
散步真的很重要，因为亚历山德拉坚信狗应该释放狗的天性。
They should be allowed to smell to their nose's content.
人们应该允许它们尽情去闻。
Often human owners pull them away from that olfactory world.
人类主人经常把狗狗从嗅觉世界里抽离出来。
We see walks as exercise or a means getting from point A to point B, and we hurry our dogs along.
我们认为散步是一种锻炼，或者是为了从A地到达B地，我们带着狗狗一起走。
We pull them away from attempts to sniff the world around them.
每当狗子想要嗅探周围的世界的时候，我们就会拉住它们。
Alexandra does the opposite: she allows her dog's agency.
亚历山德拉则相反：她给了她的狗自由。
She lets them sniff and control the pace of the walk.
她让它们闻，并控制前进的速度。
And she has done studies showing that as a result, they are more optimistic.
她所做的研究表明，这样做会让狗更加乐观。
They're less anxious. They're just happier. They're more doglike.
它们不那么焦虑了。它们更快乐，更像狗。
I think many of us who own dogs may not have really looked at this, but the next time you look at your dog, just pay attention to the shape of its nostrils.
我想我们很多养狗的人可能没有真正观察过，但你下次看狗的时候，注意一下它鼻孔的形状。
There are two holes at the front like ours, but the holes curve off to the sides like apostrophes- and those side slits are really special.
狗的鼻孔前面有两个洞，跟人类一样，但是它们的洞像撇号一样向两边弯曲——侧面的那些裂缝真的很特别。
Like if I was to bend down and sniff along the ground, every time I exhaled, I would push odors on the ground away from me.
假如我弯下腰沿着地面嗅，每次我呼气的时候都会把地上的气味吹走。
But when a dog exhales, those side slits create little vortices that actually waft odors into its nose.
但当狗狗呼气时，这些侧面的缝隙会产生小漩涡，实际上会把气味吹进它的鼻子里。
So a dog that's sniffing, whether it's exhaling or inhaling, is continuously getting this conveyor belt of smell wafting into its nose.
所以狗在嗅的时候，无论是呼气还是吸气，都在不断地让气味传送飘进它的鼻子里。
And dogs can do this for a huge amount of time.
狗狗可以长时间保持这个动作。
If I kept on sniffing, I would hyperventilate.
如果我一直闻，就会喘不过气来。
A dog can keep on doing it and be fine and just continuously update its sensory snapshots of the world in the process.
狗狗可以一直这样做，没有任何问题，而且在这个过程中它会不断更新对世界的认知快照。
Light and smells are obviously two very different kinds of stimuli.
光和气味显然是两种完全不同的刺激。
Light travels very fast.
光传播得很快。
It moves along straight lines, and so vision feels like quite an instantaneous sense to us, but one that's also blocked by obstacles.
它沿着直线移动，所以视觉对我们来说是一瞬间的感觉，但它会被障碍物阻挡。
I can't see through the walls around me.
我无法透过周围的墙看东西。
Smells are different. Smells are just small molecules drifting through the air.
气味就不一样了。气味只是空气中漂浮的小分子。
They move a little bit more slowly.
它们移动得稍微慢一点。
They can diffuse and seep and they can last over a long period of time.
它们可以扩散和渗透，并且可以持续很长一段时间。
The smells in this room will waft over from other rooms, around corners.
这个房间里的气味会从其他房间飘到角落里。
They can reveal what happened in the recent past.
气味可以揭示最近发生的事情。
They can tell me about who was recently in this room in the way that light cannot.
它们能告诉我谁最近来过这个房间，而光却不能。
But to make use of that information, I would need to have the right nose or at least have a brain that pays attention to the information that smells provide.
但为了利用这些信息，我需要有一个合适的鼻子，或者至少有一个会关注气味所提供的信息的大脑。
I don't have any of that hardware, but a dog very much does.
但我没有这些硬件，而狗是有的。
