Nose in Biological News

Mystery of bat with an extraordinary nose solved

Blacksburg, Va. A research paper co-written by a Virginia Tech faculty member explains a 60-year mystery behind a rare bat's nose that is unusually large for its species. The findings soon will be published in the scientific trade journal, Physical Review Letters . The article, "Acoustic effe...

Moths with a nose for learning

Much like Pavlov conditioned his dog to salivate in anticipation of food when a bell rang, insects can be trained to perform certain behaviors when enticed with different smells. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the National Institute ...

Captain Birdseye's robotic nose

The Captain can't freeze smelly fish that's past its best - and Icelandic scientists can now help him out by detecting the levels of stench-making bacteria faster than ever before. The research in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Journal of Environmental Monitoring reports a new method to det...

Wandering albatrosses follow their nose

The first study of how individual wandering albatrosses find food shows that the birds rely heavily on their sense of smell. The birds can pick up a scent from several miles away, U.S. and French researchers have found. "This is the first time anyone has looked at the odor-tracking behavior of ...

E-Noses: Testing their mettle against fly noses

...veloping a system for comparing their performance against the much-superior nose of the common house fly. "Although e-noses already have many uses such a...pproaches such as this could also be applied to other classes of electronic nose sensors. The CSIRO research team is looking to collaborate with developers ...

Our brain looks at eyes first to identify a face

... we take into account the eyes alone ignoring the nose and the mouth but also by considering the mouth or nose separately, albeit less reliable." Therefore, t...n primarily from the eyes, while the mouth and the nose are secondary, according to the study. According t...

New way to make sensors that detect toxic chemicals

...h a goal of identifying known toxic substances. The design works on the same general principle as another, much more familiar sensor. "The human nose coordinates signals from hundreds of thousands of sensory neurons to identify chemicals," Beach said. "Here, we're using a combination of electrical r...

Dolphins get a lift from delta wing technology

...nd found that sweptback flippers generate lift like modern delta wing aircraft. Calculating the flippers' efficiencies, the team found that the bottle nose dolphin's triangular flippers are the most efficient while the harbour porpoise and Atlantic white-sided dolphin's fins were the least efficient. C...

NIH expands Human Microbiome Project; funds sequencing centers and disease projects

... from five areas of the body: the digestive tract, the mouth, the skin, the nose and the vagina. The Human Microbiome Project's large-scale sequencing ce...0,000 The goal of this study is to examine the microbiomes of the skin and nose in three groups of patients with an inflammatory skin disease called atopic...

Discovery of a water snake that startles fish in a way that makes them flee into its jaws

...xtreme specializations. He was attracted to the tentacled snake because it is the only snake that comes equipped with a pair of short tentacles on its nose and he was curious about their function. "Before I begin a study on a new species, it is my practice to spend some time simply observing its basic ...

Preventing ear infections in the future: Delivering vaccine through the skin

...eek for three weeks. All animals were then inoculated with NTHi through the nose and directly into the middle ears. Animals that received the vaccines were able to very rapidly reduce, or completely eliminate NTHi from the nose and ears, but animals that received a placebo did not. ...

Mouse model provides a new tool for investigators of human developmental disorder

...s a human disease caused by spontaneous genetic deletions. Children born with WHS have a characteristic set of facial features, including a wide flat nose bridge, downturned mouth, high forehead, and highly arched eyebrows. Other symptoms associated with this disease include heart defects, seizures, men...

A recipe for dog bite injuries: Kids, dogs and warm weather

...e average age of injured children was six years. One-third of the bites occurred on the cheeks, 21 percent on the lips, and eight percent each on the nose and ears, results showed. Sixty-four percent of the patients suffered more than one facial wound, and 40 percent of the total injuries had to be re...

Largest prehistoric snake on record discovered in Colombia

...oboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1140 kg (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. A report describing the find appears in this week's Nature . Drs Jason Head and David Polly carried out much of the quantitative work...

At 2,500 pounds and 43 feet, prehistoric snake is the largest on record

...rejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip -- and that's a conservative estimate. A report describing the find appears in this week's Nature . "At its greatest width, the snake ...

New vaccine developed for preventing 'uncommon cold' virus

... FAIRFAX, Va. Common colds typically cause a week of sneezing, aches and pains and then fade away leaving only a sore nose and a few used sick days behind. But what if that cold turned out to be something more? Human adenovirus type-3 is known as the "uncommon cold" bec...

Study finds MRSA in Midwestern swine, workers

...ortant reservoir for this bacterium," Smith added. Staphylococcus aureus, often called "staph," are bacteria commonly carried on the skin or in the nose of healthy people. MRSA is a type of staph that is resistant to the broad-spectrum antibiotics commonly used to treat it. A recent study estimated tha...

UT Public Health researchers find link to severe Staph infections

...t protecting against certain types of infections reinforcing the importance of this virulence factor in the disease process. LukS-PV given through the nose protected the mice against pneumonia, conversely if administered subcutaneously it protected against skin infections. Brown said, "The [vaccination...

Goose eggs may help polar bears weather climate change

...l History and a Professor of Biology at City College at City University of New York. "I've seen a subadult male eat eider duck eggs whole or press its nose against the shell, break it, and eat the contents. This is similar to a different research group's observations of polar bears eating Barnacle Goose e...

Optimal dose of vitamin E maximizes benefits, minimizes risk

...," Traber said. Yet, she added, "In some people high doses of vitamin E increase the tendency to bleed. Women enrolled in the study had an increase in nose bleeds." To lessen the bleeding risk, the U.S.-based Food and Nutrition Board in 2000 set the upper tolerable limit for daily vitamin E intake at 1...

Sniffing out a better chemical sensor

...es. Described in a recent paper,* their electronic nose is more adept than conventional methodologies at r... the nostrils and bind with sensory neurons in the nose that convert the chemical interactions into an ele...ife, NIST Tech Beat , Oct., 2001.) The electronic nose employed in the current work is comprised of eight...

Human Microbiome Project awards funds for technology development, data analysis and ethical research

... samples taken from healthy human volunteers. The samples will be collected from five areas of the body: the digestive tract, the mouth, the skin, the nose and the vagina. After researchers generate profiles of microbial communities in healthy people, they will conduct demonstration projects to sample ...

A new dinosaur species, Pachyrhinosaur lakustai, unveiled from Pipestone Creek, Alberta, Canada

... The animals are characterized by a bony frill on the back of the skull ornamented with smaller horns. They also had large bony structures above their nose and eyes which lends them their name: Pachyrhinosaurus (thick-nosed lizard). These structures probably supported horns of keratin. According to Dr....

When particles are so small that they seep right through skin

...through sunscreen may contain nanoparticles, DeLouise says. "A few years ago, a lifeguard at the swimming pool wearing sunscreen might have had his nose completely covered in white. Older sunscreens have larger particles that reflect visible light. But many newer sunscreens contain nanoparticles that a...

International conference to release new findings on smell and taste

...h presentations by scientists from around the world. Selected new discoveries to be presented at the meeting include: Autism: New Clues from the nose Is the rat olfactory system sensitive to the metabolic status? Insulin helps you to determine how much salt will be added to your next meal ...

Growing use of nanomaterials spurs research to investigate possible downsides

...rticles when they find their way inside our bodies or out into the environment. "We are exposed to engineered nanomaterials through our skin, eyes, nose and mouth. They get transported into waterways and soils. And we are just not certain if they are detrimental in any way," explains Jonathan Posner, ...

Nobel laureate Dr. Linda Buck elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences 2008 Class of Fellows

...lfactory-receptor types. These receptors are located on the olfactory receptor cells, which occupy a small area in the upper part of the lining of the nose and detect the inhaled odorant molecules. Buck and Axel showed that every single olfactory-receptor cell produces one and only one of the odorant re...

Asia's odd-ball antelope faces migration crisis

...et at the shoulder and weighing about 50 pounds, the most striking feature of the saiga is its large nose, or proboscis. The function of this unusual nose is not clear, but it may serve to warm or filter air during Mongolias frigid winters and notorious dust storms. ...

Irritating smells alert special cells, NIH-funded study finds

...tary chemosensory cells scattered in the epithelium inside the front of the nose respond to high levels of irritating odors and relay signals to trigeminal ...sory cells on the surface and trigeminal nerve fibers just below allows the nose to detect a greater number of irritating odors, the scientists explain. ...

New dinosaur from Mexico offers insights into ancient life on West America

...evolution, he said. Unlike other animals where the nose bone lies in front of their eyes, these dinosaurs transformed their skulls so that the nose rested atop their skull. The snout extended backwa...ce, in order to fill the gap left by the relocated nose bone. Interestingly, breathing was not straigh...

Slow-motion video study shows shrews are highly sophisticated predators

...to swim away; Identify the shape of prey species using their whiskers; Use their sense of smell underwater by blowing air bubbles out of their nose and then re-inhaling them. Catania had discovered the third of these methods the shrews ability to follow scent trails underwater by exhaling air b...

Study of sugars on cell surface identifies key factor in flu infection

...result, latch on to glycans from different types of cells. While the protein from human-adapted flu viruses favors the sugars dotting the cells of the nose and throat, the one from bird flu viruses opts for glycans on cells deeper in the respiratory tract. Sasisekharan noted that recent studies have s...

If you don't want to fall ill this Christmas, then share a festive kiss but don't shake hands

...ping and circulating in the community. Cold and flu viruses can be spread via the hands so that family members become infected when they rub their nose or eyes. The report details how germs that cause stomach infections such as salmonella, campylobacter and norovirus can also circulate directly from p...

MIT's 'electronic nose' could detect hazards

... CAMBRIDGE, MAA tiny electronic nose that MIT researchers have engineered with a novel inkjet printing method co...e sensor designed to detect coffee and one designed to detect fish, but our nose contains arrays of sensors sensitive to various chemicals. Over time, we tr...

Genetic variant linked to odor perception

...researchers demonstrated that genetic variants of odor receptors within the nose determine how a particular odor is perceived. The researchers, led by Dukes... that odor is perceived. Humans have about 400 odor receptors within the nose that detect various odors or chemicals. Smells typically bind to their corr...

SinuNase Phase 3 show almost 100 percent of chronic sinusitis cases are from fungal-induced inflamma

...us mold, Alternaria, colonizes in the mucus of the nose and sinus of virtually everybody. However, it was... then damages the mucosal epithelial lining of the nose and sinuses, leading to the inflammatory mucosal c...ic uses a small sample of mucus from the patient's nose and tests for eMBP, which is uniquely detectable i...

Children with autism don't adapt as readily to unfamiliar faces

...ace in face-space on the basis of its deviations from the averageperhaps the face has bushier eyebrows, for example, or a greater distance between the nose and mouth. "The really neat bit is that the precise characteristics of what constitutes an average face are continuously updated based on our experien...

Advance in effort to fight malaria by tricking the mosquito's sense of smell

...ears to rely less on carbon dioxide and more on human-specific chemical compounds in seeking out hosts than does A. aegypti. The mosquitos elaborate nose consists of hundreds of hollow hair-like structures called sensilla attached to its antennae, maxillary palps and proboscis. The tips of these structu...

Longer treatment benefits sleep apnea patients

...g breathing to be difficult or even completely blocked. The CPAP device is worn while the patient sleeps and works by blowing just enough air into the nose to keep the patient's throat open. Because they often find the CPAP device cumbersome, many patients do not use it consistently or for long enou...

Rare soft-shell turtle, nesting ground found in Cambodia

...ayer over the internal organs. To protect itself from predators, the turtle spends 95 percent of its life hidden in sand or mud with only its eyes and nose showing. It possesses long claws and can extend its neck with lightning speed to bite with jaws powerful enough to crush bone. “It has the faste...