Several different research projects are underway that share one similar goal: Find a way to recreate a dog's superb sense of smell in order to detect cancer in people.
Armed with over four times as many olfactory cells as humans, dogs are able to smell chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which tumors emit. As Bloomberg reports, VOCs have been detected in the breath of colon and lung cancer patients, and in the urine of men with prostate cancer. Researchers would like to develop an "electric nose" that replicates a dog's ability to sniff out cancer.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
7 drinks for every winter need possibleThe Week Recommends Including a variety of base spirits and a range of temperatures
-
'We have made it a crime for most refugees to want the American dream'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Was the Azerbaijan Airlines plane shot down?Today's Big Question Multiple sources claim Russian anti-aircraft missile damaged passenger jet, leading to Christmas Day crash that killed at least 38
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials saySpeed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was rightSpeed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular storiesSpeed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an oceanSpeed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mindSpeed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeepingSpeed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
-
An amphibian that produces milk?speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
