Why do we have two nostrils?

 Why do we have two nostrils?

    Hi there, isn't it interesting that our body has many holes, especially our head? Think about that we have ears, eyes, mouth, nose. Well, about ears, we've two of them because by calculating the difference between sound hitting both of our ears, our brain can accurately tell us where the sound is coming from.

   But, it makes sense to have two ears, but what about two nostrils? Why do we have two of them very close to each other instead of having a single big hole? Well, let's find out.

   To understand this, we need to understand how our respiration work. We inhale, then the oxygen gets attached to hemoglobin, then its provided to tissues, and the CO2 from tissues is then exhaled out. But at any given period of time, one of our nostrils is more efficient than the other one meaning that we don't use both of our nostrils simultaneously. When one is more efficient, the other is less efficient.

   Enough about respiration, we use our nose to sense smell. In our nose, olfactory receptors translate the smell and tell us if it smells good or bad or from where the smell is coming. And again, to accurately let us know where the smell is coming from, only one nostril will not be efficient. Thats why we have, and we need two nostrils.

   Wait about the sense of smell, why there's no specific name given to the disease, and not able to smell. Like not able to hear is being deaf, not able to see is being blind, not able to speak is being mute, but what about not being able to smell? Well, the word is "Anosmia" yes, not being able to smell called anosmia.

   So in conclusion, we have two nostrils because:-

                1. One of them is always going to be efficient and,

                2. To accurately sense from where the smell is coming from, we need two of them.

   Now why the receptors which sense smell are called 'Olfactory' receptors'?

     The word is actually derived from the Latin 'olfactory' in which the verb olēre means 'to smell,' and the verb facere means to 'to do.' But why factory? The factory produces something, but the olfactory receptors only sense the smell can't produce it, or do they?

   When the molecules of odorant get into our nose, the olfactory receptors don't actually sense what type of smell it is. I mean, they do but actually, what happens is that when they sense the molecule, they actually create the smell for it and send it to the brain,, and thats why they are called ol'factory' and not sensors or something else.

   Below link from where this article was inspired.

           1. Wikipedia link to olfactory receptor:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_receptor

           2.Vsauce's youtube video from where this article was inspired:- https://youtu.be/eiAx2kqmUpQ

          3.olfactory word derivation:- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/olfactory

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