世界节假日博览 第83期:全国嗅觉日

 National Sense of Smell Day is an annual event sponsored by the Sense of Smell Institute. It is an American holiday that takes place every year on the last Saturday of April. Many different events are organized at children’s museums and science centers across the country. There are usually many hands-on (or nose-on) activities for children to do to learn about the sense of smell. Activities can include finding out about different smells from around the world and remembering the smells from your childhood. The aim of the day is to raise awareness¹ of how important the sense of smell is. We rarely think about how useful it is to be able to smell, and how it helps us survive in our lives.

每年，全国都会举办“嗅觉日”活动，“全国嗅觉日”由嗅觉协会发起。每年4月份的最后一个周六为美国嗅觉日。各地儿童博物馆，科技中心都会举办活动。儿童通常能够亲自动手，或是直接用鼻子来感受嗅觉。活动包含发现世界的不同味道，回忆儿时味道。该节日的设立目的是让人们提高对嗅觉的重视程度。对于嗅觉的有用性，对人类生存的重要性，我们却从未想过。

How important is your sense of smell to you? Most people say it is the least important of our five senses. Humans generally have a poor sense of smell. Dogs have noses that are up to one-hundred-million times more sensitive than ours. However, we can smell thousands of different things, whereas² we can only separate taste into five different tastes. Most of us have a normal sense of smell, but some people have problems smelling. People who suffer from anosmia cannot smell at all, while people who have hyperosmia are very, very sensitive to smells. An unusual disorder³ is dysosmia things smell differently than they should. Perhaps chocolate smells like gasoline and roses smell like the sea.

嗅觉到底有多重要？绝大多数人认为，它是五感中最不起眼的一个。通常，人类的嗅觉灵敏度不高。狗的嗅觉灵敏度是人的100万倍。然而，人类仍然可以通过嗅觉来判断数千种物品，但我们只把味道分为5种。多数人的嗅觉水平正常，但还有一些人存在嗅觉障碍。患有嗅觉缺失症的患者无法对味道做出判断，而对于患有嗅觉过敏症的患者，他们对嗅觉却异常敏感。还有嗅觉障碍症患者，他们对味道的感知异于常人。或许巧克力闻起来像汽油，玫瑰闻起来像茶叶。

1 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

2 whereas   

conj.而，却，反之

参考例句：

• They want a house,whereas we would rather live in a flat.他们想要一座房子，而我们宁愿住在一套房间里。
• Some praise him,whereas others condemn him.有些人赞扬他，而有些人谴责他。

3 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。