Machine Learning at the Flatiron Institute Seminar: Alex Wiltschko

Title: Mapping scent

Abstract: We’ll go through three sets of results showing that a) olfaction is a sense that can be mapped, albeit only in high-dimensions, b) this map can be used to predict human olfactory responses to molecules at superhuman accuracy, c) the same map works across nearly all species studied by olfactory neuroscience and d) a possible explanation for the broad evolutionary applicability of the map may be explained by an unappreciated link between biological metabolism and scent.