What is most incredible about this phenomenon is that it is possible to train bees to do anything! Airport drug and bomb sniffing is already a job undertaken by trained bees.
(Image: Honeybee on Snakeroot, a Creative Commons
Attribution (2.0) image from dendroica's photostream)
New Zealand biologists believe that honeybees can sense the faint floral odor on the breath of people infected with tuberculosis, and are trying to find a way to train bees to help them diagnose TB: “When we tested them with the tuberculosis odours we found the bees can still smell it down to parts per billion,” says Max Suckling.
By Kloe Palmer
It's no surprise bees have extraordinary noses, since they can detect pollen from a mile away.
Believe it or not, in some airports they are even being used to sniff out explosives and drugs, and as some Christchurch scientists are discovering soon honey bees might be able to add diagnosing tuberculosis to their CVs.
Hand picked honey bees have no idea they could revolutionise the way Tuberculosis is diagnosed. Believe it or not, humans with the lethal infectious disease have sweet floral smelling breath. People can't smell it, but bees can.
Christchurch zoologists are training bees to associate the smell of the disease with a sweet treat and to stick out their tongues when it's present.
Worldwide new TB infections occur at a rate of one per second. Right now it's diagnosed medically by expensive tests and with the disease being most common in poverty stricken areas, using bees instead could make a real difference.
It's too early to say whether GPs could be keeping sniffer bees in the surgery, but one day they could be the key to detecting an illness that kills almost two million people each year.
Hand picked honey bees have no idea they could revolutionise the way Tuberculosis is diagnosed
Source: http://www.3news.co.nz/Bees-help-in-the-battle-against-tuberculosis/tabid/1160/articleID/230861/Default.aspx#ixzz1eUGl5Jtg
(Image: Honeybee on Snakeroot, a Creative Commons
Attribution (2.0) image from dendroica's photostream)
New Zealand biologists believe that honeybees can sense the faint floral odor on the breath of people infected with tuberculosis, and are trying to find a way to train bees to help them diagnose TB: “When we tested them with the tuberculosis odours we found the bees can still smell it down to parts per billion,” says Max Suckling.
Bees help in the battle against tuberculosis
THU, 27 OCT 2011By Kloe Palmer
It's no surprise bees have extraordinary noses, since they can detect pollen from a mile away.
Believe it or not, in some airports they are even being used to sniff out explosives and drugs, and as some Christchurch scientists are discovering soon honey bees might be able to add diagnosing tuberculosis to their CVs.
Hand picked honey bees have no idea they could revolutionise the way Tuberculosis is diagnosed. Believe it or not, humans with the lethal infectious disease have sweet floral smelling breath. People can't smell it, but bees can.
Christchurch zoologists are training bees to associate the smell of the disease with a sweet treat and to stick out their tongues when it's present.
Worldwide new TB infections occur at a rate of one per second. Right now it's diagnosed medically by expensive tests and with the disease being most common in poverty stricken areas, using bees instead could make a real difference.
It's too early to say whether GPs could be keeping sniffer bees in the surgery, but one day they could be the key to detecting an illness that kills almost two million people each year.
Hand picked honey bees have no idea they could revolutionise the way Tuberculosis is diagnosed
Source: http://www.3news.co.nz/Bees-help-in-the-battle-against-tuberculosis/tabid/1160/articleID/230861/Default.aspx#ixzz1eUGl5Jtg
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