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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

How many times has it happened to you: you're sitting around watching a rerun of Friends and you think: Man, if only I could catch a whiff of that hazelnut mocchaccino they're all pretending to drink. Well, me neither.

But engineers have now developed a programmable, odor-emitting device that, like it or not, brings us one step closer to realizing the dream of smell-a-vision. Their design is described in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

TV tickles¹ us with sight and sound. Why not smells? All you'd need is a box that would sit near the set and generate fragrances² that match the images on screen: a woman's perfume or a hot apple pie. But how big would the device have to be to generate thousands of odors?

To keep the dimensions down, the scientists envision using a 100-by-100 grid³, so that just 200 on/off switches could unleash⁴ 10,000 stored bouquets⁵. Which they say makes the whole thing "quite doable."

The question then becomes: why would anyone want to do it? Presumably there are some things that are best left unsmelled. Because a sound cue is perfectly⁶ sufficient to tell us where Archie Bunker or Al Bundy has just been.

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkin.

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1 tickles
（使）发痒( tickle的第三人称单数 )；（使）愉快，逗乐
参考例句：
My foot [nose] tickles. 我的脚[鼻子]痒。 My nose tickles from the dust and I want to scratch it. 我的鼻子受灰尘的刺激发痒，很想搔它。

2 fragrances
n.芳香，香味( fragrance的名词复数 )；香水
参考例句：
The bath oil comes in various fragrances. 这种沐浴油有不同的香味。 This toilet soap lathers so nicely and has several fragrances. 这种香皂起泡很多，并且有好几种香味。来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 grid
n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅
参考例句：
In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。 Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

4 unleash
vt.发泄，发出；解带子放开
参考例句：
They hope to create allies to unleash against diseases,pests,and invasive species.他们希望创造出一些新群体来对付疾病、害虫和一些有侵害性的物种。 Changing water levels now at times unleash a miasma of disease from exposed sewage.如今，大坝不时地改变水位，从暴露的污水释放出了疾病瘴气。

5 bouquets
n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香
参考例句：
The welcoming crowd waved their bouquets. 欢迎的群众摇动着花束。来自《现代汉英综合大词典》 As the hero stepped off the platform, he was surrounded by several children with bouquets. 当英雄走下讲台时，已被几名手持花束的儿童围住了。来自《简明英汉词典》

6 perfectly
adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地
参考例句：
The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。 Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。