Your nose is like an old static-filled, black-and-white TV compared to a dog's high-definition, state-of-the-art TV. If you laid out all our smell receptors (about 5 million), they would fill your average postage stamp. A dog's receptors (about 220 million) would cover an average handkerchief.
Humans have learned how to harness that smelling power and put the canine nose to work. Dogs are trained to pinpoint gas leaks in underground pipes; locate people under water, snow or collapsed buildings; and sniff out illegal drugs, foods and plants entering the country. Criminals may try to hide their illegal cache in something strong-smelling, but dogs can find the contraband as easily as we can pick a rose out of a bunch of daisies.
With their extraordinary ability to detect some odors at as much as one part per trillion, canines are even becoming medical diagnosticians. Researchers trained household dogs to detect cancer on a patient's breath. The research found that dogs detected lung cancer with 97% accuracy and breast cancer with 88% accuracy.
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