system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does tellurium poisoning make your breath smell like garlic?

A few months ago, I was assigned to do some basic research on tellurium for a school project. When researching I found out that Tellurium breath has a garlicky odor it never said why though. It is some chemical reaction or just a coincidence?
gpt
The odor of garlic, and garlic breath, comes mostly from sulfur compounds. 

Tellurium is in the same column of the periodic table as sulfur. That means in chemical reactions it behaves similarly to sulfur. Not identically, but similarly in some important ways.

So when tellurium compounds enter your nose, they trigger sense receptors almost the same way the sulfur compounds do. Your nose sends that signal to your brain, and your brain has learned over time to associate that particular signal with "garlic."

If you had practice and experience, you could probably learn to detect the subtle differences, and distinguish sulfur from tellurium by smell. But inhaling enough tellurium to get that practice might not be a good idea.