ALLPET.COM
877-687-3601/www.AllPet.com
It
is a well-known fact that dogs have an amazing sense of smell. In the past,
police officers have used canine sniffing dogs to find lost people, illegal drugs
or smuggled food. Scientists have also used this special skill that dogs have
to track pythons in the Everglades or find whales in the ocean.
Researchers
in South Korea are working to develop a device that can detect odors as
sensitively as a dog’s nose. The senor will work like a dog’s nose, without
using canine sniffing cells. The device combines a simplified version of the
cells in a dog’s nose with tiny transistors, which are similar to those in our
computers. The device can sense hexanal, which is a chemical commonly released
in rotting food.
Tai
Hyun Park and Seunghun Hong of Seoul National University recreated a simpler
version of detecting cells in a dog’s nose using tiny bubbles made from cell
membranes. Park and Hung along with their colleagues, engineered human kidney
cells to produce canine receptor protein for hexanal. The sensor was able to detect the
6-carbon hexanal chain even when it was combined with similar chemicals 5-, 7-
and 8-carbons long. It even detected when covered with diluted spoiled milk!
No comments:
Post a Comment