[HN Gopher] Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans
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Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans
Author : serverlessmom
Score : 38 points
Date : 2023-09-04 17:35 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| markx2 wrote:
| I have a 7yr Springador / Labradinger. I prefer the latter term.
|
| I can - and do - throw a ChuckIt ball across a field. If she does
| not see the ball bounce and rest she relies totally on scent. She
| will literally pass by a bright orange/blue ball which is sitting
| at rest on short green grass or a sprinkling of white snow. She
| will hunt that ball, nose to the ground until she finds it.
|
| Two days ago I threw the ball, I was on an adjacent path, into a
| field. Because of the sun I missed that it bounced oddly, out of
| the field and into a wide grass verge. Both she and I had no clue
| at all where the ball was.
|
| That's annoying when a ball costs around PS5.
|
| I walked down the path and shrugged my shoulders to her. She
| knows that means "I have no idea where it is".
|
| She sniffed around the field, found (what I assume was the first
| bounce/scent), found the second, then ran out of the field, back
| to the path and found the ball deep in long grass. No errors,
| direct line.
|
| I may well be 'as capable' but those two words mean diddly
| (squat. Sorry!)
|
| "As capable"
|
| Are we not all born "as capable" of many things yet the
| nature/nuture kicks in?
| rolph wrote:
| you should start putting things of interest in the ball e.g
| money, thumbdrives, one of your lost pair of {X} etc.
| [deleted]
| munchler wrote:
| So "inter-nostril comparison" is like stereo for the nose?
| Apparently, we can use the slightly different inputs to each
| nostril to determine the direction from which a smell is coming.
| Cool!
| Filligree wrote:
| It also seems to be surfaced to the conscious level. At least,
| I definitely can tell you what direction a smell is coming from
| -- and it _feels_ like I know that because of a difference
| between my nostrils.
|
| So that part seems... painfully obvious?
| rolisz wrote:
| I don't really feel that, so it's not obvious to me.
| diogenes4 wrote:
| All good science is painfully obvious.
| esrauch wrote:
| Maybe I'm stereo-smell-blind but I don't feel like I have
| this power. I can tell some smell directionality by movement
| / rotating my head.
| rolph wrote:
| exhale forcefully, slowly pan your head while inhaling, pay
| attention to wind direction, know the behaviour of animals
| you are persuing.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| slightly related, but I found it entertaining
|
| How to Escape a Police Sniffing Dog - Mark Rober
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md75n8cyenA
| nelsondev wrote:
| I'm curious if our tendency to breathe through one nostril at a
| time relates to this "inter-nostril comparison"
| beardyw wrote:
| We do?
| clan wrote:
| Does not seem unlikely. It is already known to expand the range
| of smells we can detect.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_cycle
| bmacho wrote:
| Needs "Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans (2006)"
| bmacho wrote:
| I'd prefer if titles of HN submissions told me what should I
| look for.
|
| I'd click on a "Humans may be just as capable as dogs at scent-
| tracking" link, and see if it is justified (no, really, I won't
| take it as granted just because it is a HN submission title).
|
| But I don't know what to do with a "Mechanisms of scent-
| tracking in humans (2006)". I probably won't even click on it,
| and if I did, I wouldn't find anything interesting.
| [deleted]
| pxeger1 wrote:
| This snippet is amusing:
|
| > Humans are an appealing animal model [...] because they can
| follow task instructions and accurately report behavioral
| strategies. Humans also tolerate manipulations, such as nostril
| occlusion, that may aggravate even well-trained dogs
| ljlolel wrote:
| Feynman wrote about this decades ago
| molticrystal wrote:
| He may of told the story in other places, but I remember that
| it was discussed in the book Surely You're Joking, Mr.
| Feynman!.
|
| He would act as a bloodhound, smelling books, then having
| people handle the book without him present, then identifying
| which book a person handled by smelling their hands. I believe
| he did it also with playing cards after identifying the
| differences in the way people's hands smelled.
| kaybe wrote:
| Try it, it works really well! But it was the difference
| between untouched and a handled book. It's really obvious
| when you smell closely.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Does the paper really say that humans may be as capable as dogs?
|
| That doesn't sound right.
| mouse_8b wrote:
| Maybe a little hyperbolic, but I've seen other studies that
| show humans can differentiate between odors better than dogs.
|
| Dogs seem to be great at detecting odors in low concentrations.
| Once they are detectable by humans, however, it seems we have
| some pretty good olfactory skills.
| sethammons wrote:
| My sister worked in urology. She could smell bladder cancer. She
| would collect the sample, catch a whiff, recognize the sharp
| scent, and then confirmation from the lab. She never told
| patients, but she would tell the doctor, "that one has cancer."
| It is wild that she can do that; they have dogs that do it.
|
| Similarly, a human smell factoid is humans are more sensitive to
| the smell of petrichor (fresh rain on a dry area) than sharks are
| to blood!
| morkalork wrote:
| I've heard the same about c. difficile
| nn3 wrote:
| I assume there are various variants of bladder cancer depending
| on what mutations caused the cancer. Is it more likely that she
| could smell some particular common variant?
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