Although smoking does not always affect scores on smell-tests, it is widely believed to reduce sensitivity. A recent study at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that, contrary to popular belief, blind people do not necessarily have a keener sense of smell than sighted people.
In American cuisine, ribs usually refers to barbecue pork ribs, or sometimes beef ribs, which are served with various barbecue sauces. They are served as a rack of meat which diners customarily tear apart by hand, then eat the meat from the bone.
The rib is certainly... The traditional thin sliced roast beef is not from the rib, but from the rump or the round, as others have said. The rib is certainly a better cut overall - tastier, fattier - but it is most often not sliced very thin precisely because it doesn't have to be.