UNDER THE HOOD
Lots of companies are sniffing after the future, but Pasadena, California-based Cyrano Sciences (www.cyranosciences.com) is putting its money where its nose is. The Cyranose 320, a $10,000 handheld electronic odor detector, can digitally analyze and identify a wide range of smells - all within 10 seconds. Commercial applications include catching spoilage at food plants, detecting hazardous chemicals in the air and water, testing perfumes for quality, and diagnosing certain odorific diseases in patients - diabetes or lung cancer, for instance.
The Cyranose is essentially a reverse-engineered human nose. Though the device has only 32 olfactory sensor elements (compared with the thousands of receptor cells in the real thing), for many odors the machine rivals the best-trained flesh-and-blood snout. The manufacturer's three-year goal: to shrink the Cyranose onto a "Nose-Chip" cheap enough to embed in smoke detectors or, say, pots and pans to sniff out contamination. Here's a look up the electronic schnozz.
MUST READ
Swipe This
Net Free for All
Skirting the Law
Suite Surrender
Patrick Doesn't Work Here Anymore
Surfing the Interstellar Internet
People
Jargon Watch
Christmas.edu
The Biggest Big Iron
This Nose Knows
Saving Mir
Sailing Through Space
Raw Data
