Technically when you smell something, you eat it.

The small particles of the meal go into your nose, get absorbed by the tissue and travel thought your blood vessels. Eventually they go into the kidneys and from there to the other side. Will it be possible to stay alive for a couple of weeks by just smelling food non-stop? (even though I will feel hungry)

That’s not exactly the case. Your nose is picking up odor molecules, but in most cases you are not actually eating the substance and getting nutrition (see more details: bit.ly/HowSmellWorks) So please don’t cancel your meal plan – no matter how good the cooking smells…

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.