Bird Flu Scent

You've probably seen dogs working as security at airports, sniffing for drugs, bombs, and contraband food. Now our best-friend biosensors might have a new task: ferreting out the scent of bird flu. And they may not be alone on the job.Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Monell Chemical Senses Center trained mice to identify duck droppings from animals infected with bird flu. The work was presented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. The scientists trained six mice to run a maze in search of infected faeces. Every time they found the right faeces, they got a drink of water. The mice learned to choose infected over noninfected duck faeces about 90 percent of the time. The researchers believe the implications could be twofold. First, bird flu apparently leaves an odor imprint on bird faeces, and so dogs -- and even mice -- could be trained to recognize it. Second, scientists might be able to isolate the cocktail of compounds that give off odours to develop lab instruments or automated field detectors. Until then, we may find four-legged sensors, large and small, sniffing away to protect us from a bird-borne epidemic .