Get a Whiff of This

Last Updated (Tuesday, 28 July 2009 09:59) Written by Raymond Nakamura

Those people who supposedly sniff armpits for a living may soon be out of work. 

Scent of a Human

An electronic nose has been developed to sniff out components in the scent of human skin. A stew of fatty acids characterize individuals. These molecules are important for various functions in the body, but can be tricky to detect. Co-author Juan Fernández de la Mora, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yale University specializes in producing ultrafine sprays of electrically charged particles. These interact with gases and the charged molecules are easier to move with magnetic fields so they can be identified by size, using mass spectrometry. 

What Do You Nose?

Traditionally, the smelly jobs have gone to the dogs with the go-to noses for such purposes. The feasibility of identifying individuals by smell under some debate because of possible red herrings. But dogs have been used to detect cancer in the breath of patients. By clearing the air on how dogs and even mosquitoes smell, this technology could help us make sense of scents.