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.
-
Ken Martin: the Minnesota politico turned DNC chairIn the Spotlight Martin, the head of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, was elected with over half the vote
-
Montenegro offers Adriatic adventures without the crowdsThe Week Recommends There is room for everyone in this Balkan destination
-
'Although deepfake porn is a global problem, South Korea has been hit particularly hard'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Europe records big leap in renewable energySpeed Read Solar power overtook coal for the first time
-
Blue Origin conducts 1st test flight of massive rocketSpeed Read The Jeff Bezos-founded space company conducted a mostly successful test flight of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket
-
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
