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Science

E-nose Sniffs Out Nasty Resistant Bacteria 87

Posted by Zonk from the nanotech-nosehairs dept.
geekroot's dad writes "There have been several tries for an Electronic nose that seek out various airborne elements - they can find cancer, monitor recycled air for NASA and find nasty bacteria better than lab tests. Now as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA) becomes a problem not only in hospitals but in everyday life some British scientist have built a super nose to find the 'little buggers'."
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E-nose Sniffs Out Nasty Resistant Bacteria More

E-nose Sniffs Out Nasty Resistant Bacteria

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  • They may be better off building super teeth, rather than super noses.

  • HR like it (Score:4, Funny)

    by timeToy ( 643583 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @10:50PM (#13642013)
    Imagine the applications in everyday cubicle's life: A smell map of the office to answer the eternal question: The more you smell, the better you code ?
    • pungency
      skill level*
      20
      our Java guys, the lobby
      40
      C++ coders, level 3
      60
      C hackers 10 flights up
      80
      Assembler masters in floor 20
      100
      Those machine code wizards at the penthouse-suite roof
      -2147483647
      That LOGO n00b we just hired yesterday - we gave him a special basement room 'cause he stunk up the whole damn café

      *not guaranteed, results may wildly vary

  • Too bad they can't sniff English (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24, 2005 @10:54PM (#13642029)
    they can finding cancer

    Good for they's finds.
  • "There have been several tries for an Electronic nose that seek out various airborne elements - they can finding cancer..."

    That's unpossible!

  • Privacy Rights? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @10:58PM (#13642050) Homepage Journal
    This sort of thing lends itself to non-intrusive search and what civil libertarians call "violation of privacy."

    A similar technique is looking at heat, and using it to identify folks growing things in their houses: fly over with a helicopter looking at heat signatures -- the growers' houses light up. The court had to decide if this was an illegal search or not.

    Already there have been cases where cops had drug dogs sniff folks on a bus and identify smugglers. The court had to decide if the cop searched people (illegally) just by walking by them with a dog, or if the cop was innocently walking by folks, and when his dog aletered, the cop became the probable cause to search further.

    Electronic noses, with their reduced cost and targeted nature, will lead to many similar cases. A cop's e-nose might alert. He'd followup with a search, find contraband and so on. The question is, was it OK for him to have an e-nose sniffing in the first place? Or did he need a search warrant to use the e-nose?

    One can imagine an e-nose built to sniff explosives, but that also sniffs out everything else. In that case, the cops have a legit purpose to search (national security), but the effect is that they'll be busting folks for all sorts of other violations.

    • Re:Privacy Rights? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Fishead ( 658061 )
      I don't think it would be considered a privacy concern at all.

      Thermal cameras detecting heat in a house are not violating privacy at all. They do not "look through" walls like Hollywood would like you to believe, but rather just detect a different wavelength of light radiating from the outside of your house. It is no different then looking at a house without the thermal camera, you are just looking at a different wavelength of light. Heck, one thing thermal camera's can NOT see through is a window.

      The el

      • Re:Privacy Rights? (Score:3, Informative)

        by hubie ( 108345 )
        The Supreme Court (5 to 4) thought otherwise. [state.ky.us]

        Here is a quote from Scalia writing for the majority:

        "We think that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical `intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,'...constitutes a search at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use. This assures preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed w

        • That's because the cops had a lousy lawyer. You see, interestingly enough, they *DON'T* have information on the interior of the home. They only have data on the outside of it... that is to say that it has a higher emmission of heat than what is normal. The exterior observations can be used to infer particular information about the inside of the home, but in fact no real information about the inside of the home is gathered by the technique of measuring a home's heat signature.

          You could infer the same t

          • Re:Privacy Rights? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by hubie ( 108345 )
            I wouldn't say the cops had a lousy lawyer considering it went up to the Supreme Court. The analyses of that ruling are interesting (including the link I provided). The bit that Scalia argues in the post points out the importance of the government having access to techniques and instrumentation that is not available to the general populace. All the examples you bring up are using techniques and instrumentation that is widely available, so I don't think that the majority opinion would have had an issue wi
      • Here are two court cases that illustrate the issues that electronic-noses will bring up.

        Searching in public place (dog first, then real search):

        http://www.napwda.com/tips/index.phtml?id=29 [napwda.com] [napwda.com]

        "The Man" sniffing around outside your house (this one has a cool FLIR photo of a house lit up from growing plants inside):

        http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c [umkc.edu] onlaw/kyllo.htm
    • Note: idiot prognostication to follow. Heap shame and scorn upon poster.

      You raise a very valid point. Hypothetical:

      Let's assume that the technology gets to be so good that it's accurate enough that it becomes a standard tool. You have cops out, and they run their instrument all the time, trying to alert for explosives. At the same time, however (before the courts get involved), they run it looking for _everything_ that they can, and someone gets busted with some drugs on them. The specifics aren't important
      • What if probable cause was based solely on the electromagnetic radiation the policeman's eye picked up in the visible light spectrum? Should that be admissable? This isn't a case of tiny nanobots coursing through your body and clothes searching for contrabands. This is a case of data that is being emitted by you (or your belongings) that is detectable in a place the policeman (or device) is allowed to be, such as a public street. No-one is being searched, the policeman is merely processing data that he is c
        • I second this point. If any information is accessible with the police officer in a public place, or a place he or she has prior permission to be in, then why can't it be used?

          If I put stolen goods on display in my home's front window, can a police officer not act upon that because they're in a private location, even if he or she just happened to spot them whilst walking down the street?
        • "What if probable cause was based solely on the electromagnetic radiation the policeman's eye picked up in the visible light spectrum?"

          Well, aren't we just the wit?

          This would set a very poor precedent, were it to be allowed. We would now have police with the ability to almost arbitrarily set upon you (sort of the tech equivalent of "Your honor, when this young black man walked by, Deputy Wollensky's K-9 alerted.").

          And what if you just had passing contact with it? Like, say, you picked up the scent of ammoni
          • I'm not familiar with the US justice system. Are we discussing what evidence is admissible in court (I'm guessing that evidence gathered from an illegal search is inadmissible), or discussing on what grounds police might arrest a member of the public?
    • Difference is that these devices typically need to be close to the subject, aren't that fast, and often require a fair amount of sample. As a result, it's hard to apply these to people without their consent or knowledge.
    • If people want their privacy to be kept, they should block the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum from leaving their property into public airspace (whether it be the street or the air). Police should be able to use any information they happened to obtain, without a warrant. Imagine a case where a police is sitting walking past a house down the street, and two people are talking quite loudly as they plan to murder someone. Should the policeman be forced to get a warrant if he wants to use what
    • I've always assumed that the right to unreasonable search only applies to active means. An e-nose would be a passive detection device, so you'd have to be emitting some kind of smell before it'd detect it. I can't really see any difference from a dog or e-nose smelling something and a police officer seeing something. I don't mean they could stop a person & smell them (or cause any trouble like making people walk past the detectors in single file), but if they are just walking down the street & th

  • Hack it (Score:3, Funny)

    by MonGuSE ( 798397 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @10:59PM (#13642057)
    Maybe someone would be kind enough to create a hack to allow it to sniff out the BS from our politicians. Only down side is that people would think it was malfunctioning since it would go off every time any of them utter a word.

    • Re:Hack it (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by ikkonoishi ( 674762 )
      You are kidding aren't you? The average politician is so full of BS his eyes are brown. A BS detector would blow up like the scouters on DBZ the second you walked through the door of a government building.
    • Pfft, how about giving those hackers a REAL challenge :)

  • Smelloscope (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fishead ( 658061 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:01PM (#13642064)
    Yup. Working a new invention, a Smelloscope.

    Gonna win Inventor Of The Year with it.
    • Hold on, didn't you invent one of those last year?
    • A smelloscope sounds great and all... But it's no match for my Finglonger entry.
    • "Hehe, I want to smell Uranus."
      "Actually Fry, many years ago scientists changed the name to prevent that stupid joke from recurring. It is now called Yourarse."
      • Blah.. my memory is fading. The REAL quotation is.

        Professor: "Would you like to try the smelloscope, Fry?"
        Fry: "Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus."
        Leela: "I don't get it."
        Professor: "I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
        Fry: "Oh. What's it called now?"
        Professor: "Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you."
        Fry: "Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here."
      • Actually, it was "Urectum"... but that's equally pointless.

        Many people (politicians in particular) share that same spirit... if they actually found definitive solutions and implemented them, not as many of them would be required anymore.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by game kid ( 805301 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:05PM (#13642086) Homepage

    ...famous cereal toucan gets new job extolling the wonders of following electronic noses, and rumors surface that the chair of Kellogg's has thrown a bowl in angry response to said toucan's career move.

    Thank you for watching; we'll see you Monday.

  • Finally... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Jack Earl ( 913275 )
    Finally it can be proven that girls do indeed fart.

  • De-odorized bacteria (Score:4, Interesting)

    by deathcloset ( 626704 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:09PM (#13642100) Journal
    Do you think bacteria could evolve to disguise or alter their "smell" to avoid extermination?

    I read recently that there are bacteria that have evolved to consume nylon. We know they evolved recently because nylon is manufactured and does not appear in nature.

    It's apparently a pretty crappy food though. I'm not suprised.

    I wonder if that would mean you could engineer deodorant bacteria to selectively mask the detectability of certain other chemicals?
    • I read recently that there are bacteria that have evolved to consume nylon.

      Could be fun when used at parties...on women!

    • Nylon is just synthetic silk.

      Just because it is "manufactured" doesn't mean nature doesn't know whats edible.
      (you can tell if something starts falling apart, SOMETHING likes it...)

      Hell, they're bugs/fungii that live in jet fuel...
      I'm sure they didn't just evolve all of a sudden, they just happened across something tasty... ...To them at least.
    • > Do you think bacteria could evolve to disguise or alter their "smell" to avoid extermination?

      This is quite possible, if there are two strains existing with different odor and the synthetic nose helps to eradicate one strain, the other strain will be selected.
      This is no different than 'anti-biotic' resistance (which is growing)..
  • Here are two court cases that illustrate the issues that electronic-noses will bring up. Civil libertarians will freak out.

    Searching in public place:

    http://www.napwda.com/tips/index.phtml?id=29 [napwda.com]

    "The Man" sniffing around outside your house (this one has a cool FLIR photo of a house lit up from growing plants inside):

    http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/kyllo.htm [umkc.edu]
  • Holy Lord Buddha!

    Why if we had these sorts of things, people could be screened at Anime conventions right at the door. Noone [somethingpositive.net] would have to hand out these [somethingpositive.net] to the poor benighted hygiene-challenged individuals.

    Progress!

  • Discrimintation vs Detection (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr. Underbridge ( 666784 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:37PM (#13642244)
    From Article: However, it cannot yet distinguish MRSA from its close cousin MSSA (methicillin-sensitive Staph aureus), which does respond to convetional antibiotics unlike MRSA.

    As is often the case, e-nose researchers tend to focus more on detection than discrimination. If this thing generates too many false alarms, it'll be useless.

    • Yeah tell that to the guy who just found out that he has neither MRSA nor MSSA, but instead has some other disease that has similar symptoms. I'm sure he will be real pissed that it couldn't distinguish.
      • It could be worse. One of the goals for these devices (that I worked on) was discrimination among two conditions that elicit very similar smptoms. The best part is that one is fungal, and one bacterial - so if you treat it wrong, it actually gets worse.

  • You'd use this device when? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sugar Moose ( 686011 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:51PM (#13642292) Journal
    Staph bacteria is something that's very common on the outside of people. The article itself places the number at 30%, and that number is much higher for kids who handle unsanitary things all the time don't wash their hands as often as they should. It's not an epidemic because it has to enter your blood through an open wound. Most adults simply don't cut themselves very often (with the exception of shaving, but that's sanitized anyhow), so the majority of staph infections are in kids.

    The problem with this device is when would you use it? Either you're waiting for mom to bring in the kid after you already think she has a staff infection, or you're sniffing everyone at random. If mom thinks it's a staff infection, the kid probably does have staph bacteria on him, but that doesn't get you any closer to knowing if that's the infection. If you're sniffing everyone at random, you're really only picking out the people that don't wash their hands enough and making them pay for it with extra (almost certainly unnecessary) testing.

    In either case, who's celebrating this as some kind of new breakthrough that's going to revolutionize the health care industry? This really makes me wonder if this device is more for revenue than for health screening. "Hey, it looks like you tested positive for a possible staff infection. I'm sure your insurance will cover some extra tests."
    • 30% of all patients are colonized with Staph aureus. A subset of all those patients colonized with Staph aureus will harbor a special strain of Staph aureus called MRSA (methicillin resistant staph. aureus). If you currently use nose swabs and culture to test all your patients for MRSA, by using this device you can reduce the number of swabs/cultures needed by 70% (and possibly reduce costs). You will also increase the pre-test probability of a given patient being positive when tested by swab. I think th

  • Wake me up when they get to the E-Vagina. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan ( 730745 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @11:57PM (#13642324)
    Seriously.

    Zzz Zzz Zzz...
  • surely a car load of C4 would have a special scent to it.
  • we can't allow you to bring Taco Bell into the hospital. We have sensitive equipment around here.
  • The thing would willingly short circuit in my apartment.

  • Bug sniffers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cutterman ( 789191 ) on Sunday September 25, 2005 @03:32AM (#13643075)
    Years ago one of my med school teachers taught us to sniff wounds for infection. He said that with a bit of practice you could quickly learn to discriminate infections and it's true.

    Even now I often sniff dressings for infection and I'm right most of the time. The odour of different infections are quite characteristic and you can easily tell if it's light or heavy.

    Gets some funny looks at times, but I can usually beat the labs by 24 hours. My students think I'm a bit odd, but I notice that now they too take a surreptitious sniff and then pronouce wisely!

    Long live the Mark I nose.....

  • What causes anti-biotic resistance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Veteran ( 203989 ) on Sunday September 25, 2005 @08:04AM (#13643650)
    The current theories on the cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria place the blame on antibiotics and their overuse or under use. These theories utterly fail to explain one simple fact: most people don't come into the hospital with cases of drug resistant bacteria, they acquire those infections while in the hospitals. Some where in the hospital there are conditions which are breeding drug resistant bacteria.

    I believe that the real cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria is far more prosaic than anyone has suspected. Before Doctors and Nurses give people injections they are quite properly taught to point the needle up, tap the syringe to force air bubbles to the top of the syringe, then squirt enough of the fluid out of the syringe to insure that the air is cleared from the device and the needle. This is utterly necessary to prevent the injection of air into the patient's blood system where it could cause a fatal embolism.

    The antibiotic squirted out of the needle simply falls to the floor and creates a splatter. This splatter kills bacteria on the floor where it is intense enough to do so, but around the edges of the splatter surviving bacteria can breed resistant strains to every type of injectable antibiotic being used in the hospital.

    When antibiotic splatter is combined with the modern janitorial practice of a one step floor cleaner, the floor becomes a giant Petri dish for the breeding of drug resistant bacteria. One step floor 'cleaners' can't possibly clean floors; they make the floor look clean and shiny, but since many of them are made of glycerin compounds they simply serve as a growth medium for the Petri dish.

    So how do you solve the problem of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria? You do two things: first, keep splatters of antibiotics off of the floor by performing the air clearing of the syringes while the needle is still in the bottle of antibiotics - immediately after filling the syringe- and by using a spillage overflow catcher pan under the syringe while it is being filled. Second, sterilize the hospital floors with bleach and intense ultra violet light sources mounted on the undersides of push broom like devices.

    These two simple things will prevent the Petri dish conditions on floors which breed drug resistant bacteria. Both of these steps have very low costs while having very large benefits. They are similar in importance to the now standard practice of surgeons washing their hands before surgery, which was adapted in the 19th century, and which has saved countless lives since.

    The economic justification for all of these things is obvious, reducing drug resistant bacteria cases will save insurance companies far more money than the slightly greater costs of better floor cleaning and splatter prevention protocols would cost them.

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