BBC NEWS ONLINE: Left-handed women's quirk over sense of smell

Description

"The fact that their olfactory ability is virtually identical to that of normal subjects is very surprising," Prof Matthew Cobb of the University of Manchester told the BBC.

Prof Cobb, author of the forthcoming book Smell: A Very Short Introduction says the living brain is very flexible, and may be compensating for a lack of olfactory bulbs.

"For example, there is a man in Marseille whose cortex - the region of the brain generally thought to be involved in higher intellectual functions - is compressed into a tiny sliver of cells, yet he is of average intelligence and holds down a job as a civil servant.

"In China, a young woman has no cerebellum - the structure at the base of the brain involved in co-ordination - and although she does have slurred speech and poor coordination, these symptoms are nowhere near as serious as animal studies would suggest they should be."