Introducing Sense Making, a new monthly podcast from the Monell Center! Each episode will begin with a deceptively simple question about our senses — something familiar, something we think we understand — and pull it apart layer by layer until the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Through cinematic storytelling, conversations with scientists, historians, and sensory experts, and research grounded in the science of smell, taste, and human perception, Sense Making explores the hidden systems shaping how we eat, remember, feel, and sense the world. Each episode transforms everyday sensory experiences into deeper stories about identity, behavior, culture, and discovery.

We’re excited to launch Sense Making, so join us on the adventure of bringing Monell’s stories and science to the people who benefit most from our research …everyone.

This episode begins with one of the most familiar sensations we experience every year: the smell of spring. But what feels immediate and instinctive is actually an intricate interaction between chemistry, memory, perception, and emotion.

Through the voices of Monell scientists, host Christopher Maute unpacks how invisible odor molecules become meaningful experiences inside the brain — from the challenge of scientifically controlling smell itself, to how odor memories are formed, to the surprising relationship between scent, emotion, and mental health. Using the seasonal transition into spring as both mystery and metaphor, we explore how the brain transforms thousands of shifting environmental signals into something singular, emotional, and deeply human.