An artificial intelligence model that maps the structure of molecules to their smell could help create specific food tastes or find compounds to better repel disease-carrying organisms like mosquitoes
What we smell is linked to the structure of chemical molecules in the air, but many subjective factors influence it
John Howard/Getty Images
Google has used an artificial intelligence to produce a map that relates smells to the structures of molecules. It is as reliable as a human in describing the odour of a substance and the researchers behind the work say it is a crucial step towards digitising odours.
The hope is that the AI model could eventually be used to identify new scents for fragrances and flavours for food science, or come …