A little smelly thing
You probably know that animals rely on their sense of smell to find food and even to navigate their environment. Your family dog can smell you and where you have been as soon as you enter the garage. Dogs are being used in some Nordic airports to sniff the passengers as they walk down the concourse looking for drugs and active covid cases. But dogs are big and obvious, so some of Chinese police have begun to train squirrels to find drugs, particularly in packages they consider suspect. Six Eurasian red squirrels have now been “successfully trained” and will be deployed out to large complex sites, such as logistics warehouses to uncover drugs that may be hidden in warehouses and storage areas. The squirrels can climb up and around stacks of crates with ease that would take humans and forklifts hours to move. The squirrels have been trained to use their claws to scratch at boxes to alert their handlers that they have detected drugs. The squirrel squad has been doing an “excellent job” during routine tests, the Chinese trainer said. But since the years long process has been a tough nut to crack, they won’t be officially deployed for a while. “It’s probably going to take some time.”
US scientists have mutated mice to turn them into “super sniffers.” The aim is to create a new generation of animals of various sizes that can sniff out drugs or explosives, with the scientists saying the experiment is a proof of concept. In the future, rats, mice, and perhaps dogs, could be genetically altered to track down certain scents. “What we think we can do is make ‘super sniffers’ for particular odors,” said co-researcher Dr Paul Feinstein. Rats are already being used in Africa to find abandoned land mines. Some illnesses result in unique odors. Some dogs have been trained to sense some cancers and covid just by sniffing for a few seconds as you pass by. Animals have these sensors, the challenge is to train them to communicate what their noses find to a human language. We think we can develop them into tools and use them to detect disease.
Mice can now be bred with human receptors for smelling particular odors, giving information about human olfaction. This could be useful in the fragrance and flavor industry, possibly to create new scents. Some illnesses result in a loss of smell, as does ageing. The work could help in this area and possibly as a way to create some sort of “bio-reactor” made up of nerve cells to sniff out human diseases from the chemical signatures you give off in blood or sweat. Stay clean the animals are sniffing.
Smelly jokes:
My wife has a sinus condition that suppresses her ability to detect odors.
But she gets offended when I tell people that she doesn’t smell good.
What did the left eye say to the right eye?
Something smells between us.
Me: “Sweet dog you got there.”
Police officer: “Yes, this is our new drug-sniffing dog.”
Me: “Still in training, huh?”
Police officer: “What do you mean?”
Me: “Nevermind.”
What city has the worst body odor?
Pittsburgh.
March 12th Birthdays
1946 – Lisa Minelli, 1932 – Barabara Feldon, 1987 – Jamie Alexander, 2003 – Malina Weissman
1948 – James Taylor, 1982 – Samm Levine, 1982 – Tobias Schweinsteiger, 1960 – Jason Beghe