We have stereo smell to help with locating smells. There's also the nasal cycle. One nostril/sinus handles most of the airflow, then they swap (the sinuses are separate until they get to the throat). That way one can recover moisture, plus some smells are more easily detected with fast airflow and others with slow. So the nostrils functioning differently gives us a broader range of odor detection. What else? Umm, bilateral symmetry and redundancy is useful.
98
SonicBlue03 @sh.itjust.works - 7day
This guy nose.
65
picnicolas @slrpnk.net - 6day
Knows his noses.
2
acockworkorange - 6day
Nobody nose it, but you've got a secret smile...
1
roofuskit @lemmy.world - 7day
The same reason we have two eyes and snakes have forked tongues.
5
empty04 @lemmy.world - 7day
... So the snake can lick both our eyeballs at the same time before biting us on the nose?! Also two snake fangs, two human nostrils, aaahk it's twos all the way down!
3
roofuskit @lemmy.world - 6day
Snakes smell with their tongues.
1
Thisiswritteningerman @midwest.social - 6day
Since we use our nose to warm incoming cold air, I'm sure cutting the volume per nostril and boosting contact surface makes a significant difference
4
Lushed_Lungfish @lemmy.ca - 6day
Yeah, if they could both work at the same time though, that'd be ideal.
11
the_q @lemmy.zip - 7day
Because we're bifurcated creatures?
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AllNewTypeFace @leminal.space - 6day
If you do enough cocaine, you can end up with one nostril. It happened to a British TV celebrity in the 90s.
9
Stamau123 @lemmy.world - 6day
Happened to Steve-o too I believe
3
plateee - 7day
So that we know which side to lay on because one is clogged?
cm0002 in science
Why we have two nostrils instead of one big hole
https://www.popsci.com/science/why-we-have-nostrils/We have stereo smell to help with locating smells. There's also the nasal cycle. One nostril/sinus handles most of the airflow, then they swap (the sinuses are separate until they get to the throat). That way one can recover moisture, plus some smells are more easily detected with fast airflow and others with slow. So the nostrils functioning differently gives us a broader range of odor detection. What else? Umm, bilateral symmetry and redundancy is useful.
This guy nose.
Knows his noses.
Nobody nose it, but you've got a secret smile...
The same reason we have two eyes and snakes have forked tongues.
... So the snake can lick both our eyeballs at the same time before biting us on the nose?! Also two snake fangs, two human nostrils, aaahk it's twos all the way down!
Snakes smell with their tongues.
Since we use our nose to warm incoming cold air, I'm sure cutting the volume per nostril and boosting contact surface makes a significant difference
Yeah, if they could both work at the same time though, that'd be ideal.
Because we're bifurcated creatures?
If you do enough cocaine, you can end up with one nostril. It happened to a British TV celebrity in the 90s.
Happened to Steve-o too I believe
So that we know which side to lay on because one is clogged?
Bilateral symmetry, hox genes.