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Science snippets

Posted by Robin on 23 August 2008 7 Comments

A common form of skin cancer could be diagnosed by the distinctive chemical "scent" it gives off, say US experts.

Philadelphia's Monell Center sampled the air directly above basal cell carcinomas and found it was different to similar samples from healthy skin.

— Read more in Machine 'sniffs out skin cancer' at BBC News.

The next time someone says, “I smell danger in the air,” that might literally be true — and the odor might be coming from you.

At the tip of the noses of mammals, including humans, is a ball of nerve cells known as the Grueneberg ganglion [...] Only in last few years, after scientists devised strains of mice that glow green under fluorescent light, did they deduce that the Grueneberg ganglion is a component of the olfactory system.

— Read more in How the Nose Sniffs Danger in the Air at the New York Times.

Filed Under: perfume in the news
Tagged With: olfaction

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7 Comments

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  1. Anonymous says:
    23 August 2008 at 4:06 pm

    I remember hearing a story a while ago about a woman who discovered she had cancer, because her pet (I can't remember if it was a dog or cat) kept sniffing at one particular spot on the woman's body. The pet kept sniffing it and whining, day after day, over and over again. Finally, the woman asked her doctor about it, and it turned out to be a tumor. The animal smelled it through her skin.

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  2. Anonymous says:
    23 August 2008 at 5:28 pm

    Great story, thanks!

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  3. Anonymous says:
    23 August 2008 at 6:39 pm

    I've heard of that too.

    Animals are amazing. What about the dogs that can sense when their owners are about to have an epileptic fit?

    Having just had a skin cancer scare, I hope the report is true.

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  4. Anonymous says:
    24 August 2008 at 11:34 am

    It is amazing — seems funny that what sci fi writers imagined was a hand held device that you held over a body and learned everything there was to know, turns out a dog can do as well.

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  5. Anonymous says:
    24 August 2008 at 3:28 pm

    A nice, low-tech solution. Agree with the other poster that animals are truly amazing in their perceptions.

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  6. Anonymous says:
    24 August 2008 at 8:18 pm

    Yep.

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  7. Anonymous says:
    24 August 2008 at 11:04 pm

    That story is true. And it's gotten stranger. Now they've cloned the cancer sniffing dog- several times it appears.

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