tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
BOSTON ? Duck and goose droppings, the bane of golfers and park visitors, may help scientists track the spread of bird flu ? with olfactory assistance from properly trained animals.
Scientists have trained mice to identify the poop of ducks infected with avian influenza, chemical ecologist Bruce Kimball reported August 24 at the American Chemical Society?s fall meeting.
If mice can pick up the scent, it should also be possible to train dogs to track the flu trail, said Kimball, of the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the Monell Chemical Sciences Center in Philadelphia. ?I like to joke that we?re going to send people out with mice on leashes,? he said. ?But my vision is we could train dogs in much the same way.?
Mice trained on the scent of poop from infected birds correctly chose infected poop over uninfected poop 90 percent of the time, Kimball reported. When the mice were presented with new droppings not used in the training sessions, the rodents identified the flu-laced feces 77 percent of the time.
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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/62540/title/Tracking_bird_flu_one_poop_at_a_time
Scientists have trained mice to identify the poop of ducks infected with avian influenza, chemical ecologist Bruce Kimball reported August 24 at the American Chemical Society?s fall meeting.
If mice can pick up the scent, it should also be possible to train dogs to track the flu trail, said Kimball, of the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the Monell Chemical Sciences Center in Philadelphia. ?I like to joke that we?re going to send people out with mice on leashes,? he said. ?But my vision is we could train dogs in much the same way.?
Mice trained on the scent of poop from infected birds correctly chose infected poop over uninfected poop 90 percent of the time, Kimball reported. When the mice were presented with new droppings not used in the training sessions, the rodents identified the flu-laced feces 77 percent of the time.
...
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/62540/title/Tracking_bird_flu_one_poop_at_a_time