Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
你把幸福捧在手里，看似微不足道，一旦放手，你便立刻感觉到它的重要与珍贵。
Researchers at Michigan State University recently found that bees' sense of "smell" is sensitive enough to identify chemical smells of cancer.
Bees sense chemicals in their environment using antennae, structures on their heads, which serve as "noses" to sense smells.
The researchers wrote in a study published last month that honeybees can sniff out lung cancer on a patient's breath.
Debajit Saha is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Michigan State University. He was part of a team that published the research.
"Our world is visual. [The] insects' world is all based on smell, so their sense of smell is very, very good," Saha said.
"There is quite a bit of research that shows that when some cancer grows inside our body, our breath actually changes. Our research does show that honeybees can detect lung cancer and possibly other diseases based on the smell of those cells."
The scientists said that the bees could tell the difference between the cancer breath and the laboratory copy of the healthy human breath 93 percent of the time. The scientists added that the bees could also tell the difference between different kinds of lung cancer.
The discovery could help doctors detect many cancers, including lung, breast, head and neck, and colorectal cancers, earlier than other methods. Saha says detecting cancers this way would be an improvement.
He hopes to develop a system that a patient will be able to breathe into and which can be carried around easily. This would deliver test results immediately.
"Hopefully, within the next five years, we'll have something to show that humans can be diagnosed using these insect brain disc sensors," Saha said.
Dogs can also help find cancer
Using animals to detect cancer is not a new idea. At the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers are training dogs to smell some kinds of cancer.
Cindy Otto is executive director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia. She said many other animals also have very good senses of smell. "But part of what makes dogs so good is that they cooperate with humans, and so, they communicate that information," she added.
Not all dogs can do this work. Otto said, "They need to love it to be engaged. And so, it's a really fun game for them."
Some researchers say that dogs detect cancer better than machines. They note that a dog's sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times sharper than that of humans.
Amritha Mallikarjun is another postdoctoral researcher at the center. She said dogs are more sensitive to smells than any machines sold today. But the scientists hope to create a machine that will identify disease just as well as dogs.
密歇根州立大学的研究人员最近发现，蜜蜂的“嗅觉”灵敏到足以识别癌症的化学气味。
蜜蜂利用头上的触角来感知周围环境中的化学物质，触角就相当于它们感知气味的“鼻子”。
研究人员在上个月发表的一项研究中写道，蜜蜂能够嗅出患者呼吸中的肺癌气味。
德巴吉特·萨哈是密歇根州立大学的生物医学工程助理教授。他是发表这项研究的团队成员之一。
萨哈说：“我们所处的世界是视觉主导的。而昆虫的世界完全基于嗅觉，所以它们的嗅觉非常非常灵敏。”
“有大量研究表明，当我们体内某些部位发生癌变时，我们的呼吸实际上会发生变化。我们的研究确实表明，蜜蜂能够根据癌细胞的气味检测出肺癌，或许还能检测出其他疾病。”
科学家们表示，蜜蜂有93%的概率能区分出癌症患者的呼吸和实验室模拟的健康人呼吸。科学家们还补充说，蜜蜂也能区分不同类型的肺癌。
这一发现有助于医生比其他方法更早地检测出许多癌症，包括肺癌、乳腺癌、头颈癌和结直肠癌等。萨哈表示，通过这种方式检测癌症将会是一种改进。
他希望开发出一种系统，让患者能够对着其呼吸，而且该系统便于携带，能立即给出检测结果。
萨哈说：“希望在未来五年内，我们能有所成果，证明可以利用这些昆虫脑部的嗅觉传感器来诊断人类疾病。”
狗也能帮助发现癌症
利用动物来检测癌症并非新思路。在宾夕法尼亚大学的宾夕法尼亚兽医工作犬中心，研究人员正在训练狗来嗅出某些种类的癌症。
辛迪·奥托是费城宾夕法尼亚兽医工作犬中心的执行主任。她说，许多其他动物的嗅觉也非常灵敏。她还补充说：“但狗之所以表现出色，部分原因在于它们能与人类合作，并且能传达相关信息。”
并非所有的狗都能从事这项工作。奥托说：“它们得喜欢这项工作才会投入其中。所以，对它们来说，这得是个非常有趣的游戏。”
一些研究人员表示，狗检测癌症的能力比机器更强。他们指出，狗的嗅觉比人类灵敏10000到100000倍。
阿姆里莎·马利卡尔朱恩是该中心的另一位博士后研究员。她说，狗对气味的敏感度比当今市面上任何机器都要高。但科学家们希望能制造出一种机器，其检测疾病的能力能与狗相媲美。
今天阅读了吗
打卡30天，免费领取➡最新网课
猜你喜欢
更多资源点击公众号底部菜单自取
—END—
点亮在看,携手更多人前行
