Slashdot Mirror
Identifying People By Odor As Effective As Fingerprinting
A study has found that everybody has a unique body odor, like their fingerprints, that could be used as an unique identifier. The study showed that a persons unique odor stayed the same even if they varied their diet with strong smelling foods such as garlic and spices. "These findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals," said Monell chemist Jae Kwak. I would have thought that hundreds of years of dogs tracking people would have proved this, but it's nice to know that science has figured it out officially now.
Why is this even Idle? This is actually somewhat interesting.... I hate Idle, Btw.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
And one more thing... Trying to make Idle legitimate by putting real articles on it too is lame. Put real articles where they belong, banish idle to hell.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
i need to know
each persons' fart has its own unique flavor too. although I don't envy the poor bastard who has to test this theory.
It's on Idle because this idea was invented by Shampoo.
I welcome our new armpit sniffing overlords!
the idea that fingerprints are unique is stupid, especially for anyone who is actually in law enforcement or forensics. you need 12 count it TWELVE different points of matching to even get a fingerprint submitted for evidence. so if this odor is just as effective that means its pretty much a scare tactic as much as "we got your fingerprints at the scene!" is
Two - the number of consecutive stories on Idle posted by samzenpus that have been about smell.
If the title of the next Idle story isn't "Silent But Deadly", I'm going to be incredibly disappointed.
when one wears deodorant or perfume? Does the smell go away?
I would have thought that hundreds of years of dogs tracking people would have proved this, but it's nice to know that science has figured it out officially now.
.
First of all, tracking is not identifying. Second of all, if two people have the same scent but non-overlapping movement paths, you can successfully track the one whose path you're on, so ability to track is not a very pure way of measuring smell-based distinguishability. Thirdly, dogs probably have vastly different ability levels for tracking by smell vs. tracking by fingerprint due to the two leaving different amounts of trail material. Fourthly throughout these years, have comparisons been made between smell-dogs and print-dogs? And fifthly, just because the market uses dogs to track on smell doesn't mean it's the best way to even track people: there may be market inertia factors and/or cost/benefit ratios that favor using smelling dogs.
.
Science has not figured out that hunting by smell works. They've found out that odors are better than fingerprints for identifying people. If it had gone the other way, should we all go and replace our dogs? No, they probably work best in practice, due to better hardware support for the odor-based tracking.
I drink a lot (a fifth of vodka every two days, on average). One of my coworkers, out of 12+, claims she can smell the hell out of it on me. I shower each morning and two different Axe products are part of my showering repertoire. While I don't doubt that I sweat out some portion of the previous night's alcohol during the course of the work day, I'm curious where the threshold is.
I put back about 375ml of vodka per night - mixed with various other beverages, typically Diet Mt. Dew, a random Gatorade, or one of Ocean Spray's delicious juices. Some nights I have no vodka, but drink 6 to 12 beers instead, depending upon the brand. And from time to time, such as last night, I'll get to sleep simply by virtue of 100mg Diphenhydramine HCl without having a drop of alcohol. This coworker swears she can still smell it, even after I've gone 48 hours and 2 or more showers since my last drink.
I suspect that certain people have unusually strong senses of smell. We know that dogs do. I hope that I don't have any offensive BO at work, and I'd doubly hope that if I did, someone would tell me about it. That only a single coworker has mentioned her ability to "smell the booze on me" makes me paranoid, but it also makes me wonder. Is she hypersensitive, or are all of my other coworkers picking up on it and just being too polite to say anything? Knowing most of my coworkers very fondly, I suspect the former.
Dogs have never liked me - or conversely, they've always liked me too much. To me, canines exhibit excessive hyperactivity. That's why I have a cat instead. She might be the boss of my house, but the only time she freaks out is when I drop some fresh catnip somewhere nearby.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
That is, unless you take hormones or get a hormone imbalance. Then your scent can change dramatically.
Appears to be inspecting a hiked up leg...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"Your unique body odor" does not change, but YOUR OVERALL SMELL does!
Notice that they carefully do not make this distinction.
Animals, including dogs, CAN be confused by confounding odors. And those odors do include things in your diet, as well as applied scents like cologne.
YOUR odor might not change... but that does not mean that your smell cannot change, or that things that rely on smell (like chemical sensors) will recognize you.
Your gait can also be used to identify you. Something that could more easily be added to remote surveillance than a bloodhound :-)
I'm not sure about odor on men (as I'm not interested in men, thank you), but odor on each woman is quite distinctive if you have intimate contact with her. That's only from personal experience (anecdote), and by no means a scientific study.
The five women I have (or had) intimate relationship with, I can distinguish each one of them with my eyes blind-folded. A woman's distinctive smell are usually from the cheek, on the neck, from behind the ear, on the lips, etc. It's definitely distinctive, but can it be used as a unique identifier, I'm not sure.
Thinking about it, each woman having a distinctive oder is quite natural, as this is the same thing as on other animals. After all these years of evolution, humans do not rely on smell anymore to mate or to find a mate, therefore, it has become less important and less obvious. But I think it's still there, if you pay attention to it.
*fart*
Fantastic!
Now that you guys have found my balls.... through their signature fingerprint(s), you can, well, ummmm....
Lindsay Blanton
RadioReference.com
From 2007
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/05/2273_human_scen.html
From 2006:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002329.html
I believe the East German Stasi were doing for several decades...
Didn't the 4th Alien movie (the one with winona ryder) kinda show one of the problems with this?
"Dogs suck at tracking people in urban environments. They can do a ridiculously good job in the country, but put them in downtown New York and they lose the scent immediately. That would indicate that the odor is either not unique, or that dogs are not capable of detecting the subtle differences."
Or it could just mean that other smells and stimuli compete for the dog's attention, masking the scent to be tracked. Urban environments are filled with all kinds of odors, noises, and pollution. This probably plays as much a role in tracking as the actual distinctiveness of a smell itself.
Does idle base its story submissions solely by how well the content matches up to whatever pictures they happen have lying around?
Iced ink.
Why did it take a study to find that everybody has a unique body odour? It isn't much of a discovery, did anybody actually think that we all smell exactly the same before this?
how to genetically alter humans to smell like dogs...
In Berlin, Germany during the cold war era, the Stasi (Big Brother Police) knew this! They could track individuals with smell. In fact they have a room FILLED with little jars of every citizens' personal smell! I've been there and seen the rooms. They had special dogs trained for this too. They would open the jar and let the dog smell some... then go out into the city and find this person, they had a good success rate too which is kind of surprising. They would even track people by spraying different pheromones on their target.
sniff sniff sniff... Hi Honey!
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
"These findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals"
Slightly off-topic, but since when do fingerprints qualify as a reliable way to identify a person? They can easily be faked, and once they are, there's no way to revoke them. It's like having a really bad passport...
Future societies might think us a bunch of weirdo clean freaks the way we shower once or more a day, change into freshly laundered clothes every day, scrub and disinfect everything, and apply deodorants and perfumes. Victorian England, where a bare female ankle was scandalously revealing, is considered extremely prudish by America, which is in turn considered prudish by contemporary Europeans.
Some dirt is healthy, some odor is useful, and we have studies that suggest as much. Helps the immune system practice, and too much cleanliness may lead to allergies. Used to be people could only fantasize about such cleanliness, now we have the means to overkill on being clean and we're doing it.
There's also the disgust over digestion. Lot of related medical problems are missed and sanitation simply not done because of squeamishness on this subject. Strangely, our habits are not as clean as they could be, what with toilet paper still in common use in much of the world. The obsession with cleanliness hasn't reached that far, it seems.
It's the same story with lawns. Now we have the power to mow hundreds of square km's, and wastefully water, weed, and fertilize, so we do it to extreme to satisfy our obsessions about such things as snakes in the grass and total control of our immediate environment. Most people consider the perfectly cut, brilliantly green, and monocultured lawn the height of home and office settings.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
women have a keener sense of smell than men
Hmmm. On anecdotal evidence, I am inclined to politely say "nonsense".
My point is based on the number of women I know who wear enough stinky perfume to knock down a yak at 40 paces.
and a distinct taste if you lick them ( not eat them ). Yeah very sexual in a sense to get that close to someone, but hey, unless your some type of prude who denies that people have sex, then you probably have done some licking of another person and have said, she/he tastes so fine or something.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Kerril: [moving closer] What's the matter, killer, lost your nerve?
Vila: That's right. Pity I didn't lose my sense of smell as well.
Kerril: What's that supposed to mean?
Vila: You should try taking a bath sometime; you smell terrible.
Kerril: For someone who's lost his nerve, you take risks, little man.
Vila: You didn't go to all this trouble just to kill me.
Kerril: Move.
Vila: Where?
Kerril: [gestures with gun] There.
Vila: A mouthwash would be a good idea too.
Kerril: Move.
Kerril: How did you know I was here?
Vila: Sorry?
Kerril: When I first came in, how did you know I was here?
Vila: I heard you.
Kerril: No, you didn't.
Vila: Psychic.
Kerril: [angry] For a thief, you lie badly.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Gift or Curse? I really don't know. I've always been very quick to identify my friends by smell, even when my friends tell me they can't smell each other. Perfumes suck, for sure, but don't mask. Garlic and other foods make me crazy, too, but don't block my ability to smell my friends and neighbors.
Anything you say will be held against you.
I hate the way the airport fingers me as a terrist everytime I eat a John-Bob burrito.
Table-ized A.I.
In this state, too many people smell like Old Milwaukee, Copenhagen, ramps (see also leeks/scallions), and plain old funk. Don't believe me? Go to a county fair just once...
An interesting test involved women who are given t-shirts worn by men, who don't use deoderant for about 2 hours. The women were asked to rate each smell whether they liked it or not. When scientists looked at the genetic haplotypes of the women and the men whose smell they preferred, they tended to pick men who were very different genetically from them.
..........FULL STOP.
Either a person smells bad, or good (i.e. nothing).
What would be more useful is a graph theory formula to find the seat that exposes you to the minimum amount of stench. Ready? Go.
I'm so glad I have you guys, it's not like I can post this request on my linux group listserv.