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."

Re:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

first post

I think someone should explain to you how this works.

what movies was that?

[Twillerror]

What movie was it that a guy pissed into a smart toilet every morning which could detect changes in diet and shit...we are one piss closer.

Re:

[wwfarch]

I never saw The Island but it was definitely in THX1138

Re:

[ericspinder]

THX1138 and/or The Island wasn't it?

I'm not sure of either of those, but since you didn't mention the Simpsons, you'll need to turn in your /. user id.

Richie Rich Quote

[drizek]

Richard Rich Sr.: [on Prof. Keenbean's Smellmaster 9000] Glasses, electronic aids and surgery help us see and hear better. Isn't it time we had something to help us SMELL better?

Regina Rich: We already do, dear. It's called Chanel.

Re:

[dr_dank]

Is it Ghostbusters II?

Re:

[CodeBuster]

The film in question was The Island [imdb.com] where Ewan McGregor [imdb.com], as the clone Lincoln Six Echo, has been secretly drinking alcohol given to him by the sympathetic company man James McCord played by Steve Buscemi [imdb.com]. The toilet was detecting the deleterious metabolites of alcohol breakdown being passed the morning after the drinking binge by Lincoln.

Re:

[nospam007]

"What movie was it that a guy pissed into a smart toilet..."

Ah, you mean cancer of the small brain.

Re:

[LifesABeach]

What's kinda of funny these days is what else THX's TV Chair did while he watched TV...

Rent "Sleeper"

[wsanders]

For some reason, the nose-cloning scenes from "Sleeper" sprung immediately to mind when I read "NASA's Electronic Nose".

Better Yet, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[chill]

Really? The first thing that popped into my mind was the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs [youtube.com]

NASA's eNose can sniff everything

[impaledsunset]

I heard that NASA's eNose is so sensitive it could tell a homeopathic preparation from pure water.

Re:NASA's eNose can sniff everything

[interkin3tic]

Homeopathic medicine humor, eh? I would have said something like it can tell american beer from water, but I guess that's a little low brow compared to yours.

Can it sniff out explosives?

[Tibor the Hun]

Could it sniff out explosives, so we could detect roadside bombs, and not have to squirt toothpaste into baggies at airports?

Re:

[Hurricane78]

What does the security theater at airports have to do with bombs?

No. Seriously!

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 [google.com]

Cheers,

Re:Dogs as trained sniffers

[jlmale0]

Robot noses don't pee on your bags.

They leak oil instead.

Re:

[drizek]

Where do people get the idea that robots need oil?

Robots will be powered by electric motors, meaning they won't need lubricants, at least not in the same way that cars do. Depending on what you build them out of, they might need some form of lubrication in the joints, but thats just a few sprays of WD40 on the assembly line.

They won't be guzzling quarts of Mobil 1 like they do in cartoons.

I'm not taking any chances...

[bobbuck]

Here: http://theinfosphere.org/Mom's_Old-Fashioned_Robot_Oil [theinfosphere.org]

According to Mom, anything that moves with a load for any time should be lubricated to improve efficiency and wear.

I'm going for the borscht!

[rts008]

Now we can finally put an end to all of the squabbling going on in the ISS.

With the NASA Nose, we will finally be able to prove once and for all whose farts smell the worse, and by how much!

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:

[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:

[Hurricane78]

You don't get it, do you?

10k ppm = 1 in 100
1 ppm = 1 in 1,000,000

None of your 0.000001 parts per hundred nonsense.

The "one in" notation is much much clearer.

Re:

[Dragonslicer]

Parts per million (ppm) is a standard, commonly used unit when talking about things like chemical concentration. To people that work with this stuff on a daily basis, ppm is probably easier to understand than "1 part per hundred".

Heard that before - about 5 million times

[uberjack]

If I had 5 cents every time I heard "[x] might be able to cure [y] cancer", I'd be a millionaire. If it was for every time I heard "[x] actually detects/cures [y] cancer," I'd be on the street begging for spare change.

Re:

[MasterOfDisaster]

If I had a nickel for every time someone proposed a hypothetical cure for cancer, why, I'd have enough to start my own research facility for creating hypothetical cures for cancer!

Just think of the unlimited profit opportunities!

Re:

[cperciva]

If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say "if I had a nickel", I'd have a lot of nickels.

It's been done

[keiofh]

Dogs can already be used to detect cancer. Why rely on computers? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/06/60minutes/main665263.shtml [cbsnews.com]

Re:

[kundziad]

Because we exactly understand the way in which they work (less the extreme cases of unproven yet used mathematical theorems) and easily modify them to meat our other needs. Relying on much autonomous beings such as dogs is riskier and harder in the long run.

Re:

[scatter_gather]

You rely on computers because dogs cannot detect cancer with sufficient reliability to count on them, day after day, year after year, and their cancer detection accuracy is not all that high to begin with for deep cancers. I taught one to detect breast cancer and I can tell you it is not easy and the accuracy was poor for all of the dogs in the study. The amazing part is that it could be done at all.

And then

[RomulusNR]

we will be able to cure cancer with Febreeze.

Re:

[drizek]

Cures 99.9%* of Cancers!

Sniffing what?

[Corson]

Nobody knows exactly what cancer is, let alone what molecules have "diagnostic value" in cancer. Not to mention that there thousands of different cancer types. So, what is this thing sniffing?

Smellable Cancer = Metastasized?

[oneplus999]

I assume that if there is evidence of your cancer floating around, then the likely reason is that it has metastasized to your lungs, in which case you already have a really advanced stage of the cancer. In order to actually be a useful method for diagnosis, you need it to work much sooner than that.

really now

[speedtux]

NASA's electronic nose to sniff brain cancer cells and cells in other organs

I don't want NASA's nose anywhere near my organ.