"I was simply trying to find the way the olfactory tubercle responds to odors." That's neurologist Daniel Wesson, proving that science dorks are the very best kind of dorks, as he recalls the time he noticed that the clunk his coffee mug made on the counter in the lab registered a spike in the odor-receiving area of the brain in the mice he was studying. That kismet eureka moment at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, NY, led Wesson and his partner Donald Wilson to the discovery of what they believe may be a new category of sensory perception: the combination of smell and sound: "smound."

Wesson then honed the focus of the study. As Scientific American explains:

He and Wilson repeatedly sent a mix of both odors and tones into tubercle cells and saw that responses from 29 percent became either enhanced or suppressed depending on the presence or absence of the second stimulus. One cell, for example, appeared not to care for either smell or sound but responded robustly to the combination.

The discovery of smound has implications for the study of synesthesia-the mysterious crossing-up of senses, often associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, that leads some people to "see" flavors or "taste" colors. "While we like to think that there are five separate senses, that's not the way it works," said Donald Katz, a neurobiologist at Brandeis University. "What your brain really does is take objects and process them." Well, maybe your brain does.

Most importantly, though, is the possibility that Wesson and Wilson's work might one day provide us with the basis for scientifically verifiable proof that the Black Eyed Peas' music really does stink.