Dana Professor of Biology David Hornung has dedicated his dog, Maya, to the cause of science. A few years ago he worked with a group of SLU seniors on an honors project involving his research on the dynamics of smell and taste. The group asked volunteers to wear gauze patches under their arms while they watched 30-minute video clips of sexually explicit, action, romance, and local news scenes.

“Different parts of the brain light up when humans smell the scents generated when other people watch various kinds of videos,” Hornung explains. Maya was trained to recognize the scent the porn scene stimulated, while other scents served as distracters. The more a distracter was picked, the closer the individual found it to the target scent. “For men the most chosen smell was generated by the action scene; for women, the romance,” Hornung says. The group presented their findings at an international meeting dealing with smell and taste in San Francisco during the summer of 2007.

A biology and chemistry major in college, Hornung attended graduate school at SUNY Syracuse Health Science Center. He maintains ties there, helping run a smell and taste disorder clinic in the university’s hospital and conducting research into why people lose their olfactory and taste abilities. Still, Hornung makes it clear that SLU is his priority.

“Usually, all med students care about is passing the exams,” he says. “Undergrads here are more interested in playing with ideas. They’ll take time to wrestle with medical ethics or the philosophy of science.” This exploration is something Hornung actively participates in, teaching courses titled Individual and Social Wellness and Medical Ethics. “What could be better than dealing with smart, healthy kids who are willing to have a little fun?” he says.