Scientists discover the chemicals behind the unique Parkinson’s smell
economist.com
economist.com
I love when people use these small time superpowers for tho good of everyone.
One way to discover function is to what's called a "genetic screen": Assuming one develops a robust way of measuring those chemicals; we fix that as the "phenotype" we're looking for. We can then disable each gene (with CRISPR, or RNAi, or chemical mutagenesis..) and see if the chemicals get produced (or stop getting produced); and then sift through those. This strategy is far from being exhausted; and people keep coming up with cool phenotypes to measure.
One idea I've been excited for some time is using ML to robustly annotate behaviors from mice by using wide-range microphones and 24/7 video as the phenotype; and use a combinatorial genetic screen to rigorously discover genetic contributors to behavior (aggression, mobility, curiosity, socializing behavior etc.) The ML algorithm can be initially trained by hand-annotated behaviors (annotated by post-docs etc.)
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1107030/dementia...
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I suspect that’s just a mistake in the headline. The article doesn’t say anything about Alzheimer’s.
It does mention that she can smell cancer and tuberculosis, however.
Is that even remotely true that people can't smell that aisle? I don't think I have an extraordinary sense of smell and I think of the smell of that aisle as "rank" or something like that.
And no, I don't think most people feel no smell in the cleaning aisle.
The aisle has a faintly bleachy/detergenty smell to me, but not usually oppressive, more just pleasantly clean, I suppose.
But I have noticed my hands/sweat smell different when I have a cold, and sometimes a day or two before I feel ill. I usually only get close enough to notice it on my own body, but I have a couple of times entered someone else's room/office and smelt the same smell before hearing confirmation from their croaky voice, snuffling, or them just telling me they have a cold.
(And no, it's not the smell of cough sweets or lemon/honey-based cold remedies, but it might be partly the smell of damp tissues and stale phlegm and other such nice things. Subtle but sickly sweet.)
Obviously this is neither particularly useful nor a superpower, but I'm glad research is going on into more useful applications of similar phenomena.
Discovery of volatile biomarkers of Parkinsons disease from sebum
https://doi.org/10.1101/469726 (free full-text PDF link on site)
From the abstract:
We have serendipitously identified a hyperosmic individual, a Super Smeller that can detect Parkinson's Disease(PD) by odor alone, and our early pilot studies have indicated that the odor was present in the sebum from the skin of PD subjects.
It's tantalizing to see the names fixed in print. To make a software dev analogy, it's like finally reproducing a heisenbug and knowing it's very likely you'll find the root cause soon.
Turns out I am not the only one: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53132398/xcode-10-1-open...
half a year old at least, as long as the first file is a readme it will open that one instead of the actually clicked file in a new window no matter what. Only fix is to remove the file
but if Xcode is instead set to open as new tab instead of new window, instead everything works just fine.
As an aside, the Heisenbug is erroneously named because the phenomenon being described is actually the observer effect ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) ). The uncertainty principle refers to something entirely different.
And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way.
Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most common diseases have such a characteristic?
The further issue diagnosing cancer/no cancer or epilepsy/no is an easy problem. But train a dog/machine on 1000 or more rare diseases. Now selectivity is an actual issue. And unless you manage to overcome that, how is all this scent stuff clinically useful?
I also dont understand how training a machine would have selectivity issues. Machines dont "get trained" on one thing.
0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067368...
...and the impending onset of dangerously low blood sugar, well before the person realizes that something is wrong. There are diabetes assist dogs available for this [1].
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expe...
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
I'm right there with you though, I bet the tricorder has a nose not a eye.
Of course, imagine if we started rapidly acquiring knowledge, I’d be saying within 75 years.
Your choice.
Personally, I’d say it’s more like millions of smaller problems.
It's not new at all. Traditional Chinese medicine has used it for a long time, among others.