NASA's eNose Sniffs Out Brain Cancer

ScienceDaily is reporting that an electronic nose developed by NASA for monitoring potential leaks on the ISS may be able to sniff out brain cancer. "The electronic nose, which is to be installed on the International Space Station in order to automatically monitor the station's air, can detect contaminants within a range of one to approximately 10,000 parts per million. In a series of experiments, the Brain Mapping Foundation used NASA's electronic nose to sniff brain cancer cells and cells in other organs. Their data demonstrates that the electronic nose can sense differences in odor from normal versus cancerous cells. These experiments will help pave the way for more sophisticated biochemical analysis and experimentation."

Comments

Dogs already doing that years ago

[zooblethorpe]

Sure, it's great they've figured out how to do this artificially, but we've known for *years* that cancer smells differently, and we've even had dogs trained to do it:

http://www.google.com/search?q=dogs+sniff+cancer

Cheers,

10k/1000k

[XaXXon]

ten thousand parts per million is a lot easier to understand as 1 part per hundred. And a lot less impressive.

Re:10k/1000k

[pinkocommie]

That's its lowest sensitivity setting. It can detect from 1 ppm upto 10k ppm. If you wanted to convert it to per hundred it'd be something like 0.000001 to 1 parts per hundred. Not exactly standard notation

Re:what movies was that?

[wwfarch]

I never saw The Island but it was definitely in THX1138