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Humans have long harnessed the olfactory superiority of dogs for hunts and, more recently, to sniff out bombs, drugs and people during search-and-rescue missions. Now, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania are hoping to make early cancer detection the next frontier for canine-human collaboration. Inspired by previous research that found dogs could be trained to detect the scent of ovarian cancer in blood cells, the research team is working on a mechanical device – an ‘electronic nose system’ – to capture the same odour profile. Ultimately, the team hopes to develop a practical medical instrument to help doctors catch this deadly, elusive cancer earlier.
Video by Science Friday
Producer: Luke Groskin
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Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
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Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
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Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
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War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
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Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes
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Information and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
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Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
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Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes
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Biotechnology
It’s our responsibility to engineer corals that can weather the world we’ve created
11 minutes