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I'm most exited about earth science beacuse I enjoy working with maps and I am interested in learning why things are what they look like now.

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This is very interesting becuase I want to work with dogs somewhere in the future and I wonder how good their scent really is

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Sweat from people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 has a distinct smell. We can't detect it. Dogs, it now turns out, can.

Over the past few months, research teams around the world have been training dogs to sniff out this coronavirus. Some dogs are so good they can find it 100 percent of the time over the course of dozens of tests.

"Just like humans, some dogs are more clever than others," observes Dominique Grandjean. He's a researcher at France's National Veterinary School in Maisons-Alfort. He also oversees the training of French search and rescue dogs that work with Paris firefighters and emergency responders.

Grandjean's team was among the first to show that dogs could be trained to detect the coronavirus in infected people. Starting in March, these researchers collected sweat samples from the armpits of volunteers. Some were infected, others weren't.

Nosaïs

The team swabbed a roll of clean cotton under each volunteer's arm for one minute. Then the researchers dropped the cotton into glass jars. Each jar was topped with a steel cone into which dogs could put their muzzles. This allowed the canines to sniff a sample without touching it.

The researchers did this to keep the dogs safe. No studies have yet turned up the virus in human sweat. But the researchers were being careful. A few dogs around the world have become infected with the virus. None, however, is yet known to have been sickened by it.

The new study used samples from people who tested positive for the virus and had symptoms. This is important. Some people can be infected but show no symptoms. This allows them to unknowingly spread it to others.

Grandjean's group has now begun testing dogs with the sweat of infected people who do not show symptoms. Early results suggest the dogs can identify these people, too.

How the dogs were tested

Eight Belgian Malinois (BEL-juhn MAL-uhn-wah) shepherds were used in the first tests, those on samples from people with symptoms. The dogs had been specially trained. Most of the dogs had been working with firefighters and emergency responders. Some had been trained to sniff out people buried under rubble after an explosion. A few others had been trained to help doctors diagnose disease. They did this by identifying a telltale gas emitted out the rectums of people with colon cancer.

All of these dogs then learned to identify COVID-19. They trained by sniffing inside the steel cones attached to five lined-up sample jars. When a dog sat down in front of a cone containing a virus-positive sample, its trainer rewarded it with a favorite toy. Every dog has one - a tennis ball or a braided rope, for example. "My dog likes a small pink plastic hippo," says Grandjean.

Nosaïs

Once the dogs understood what their trainers wanted them to look for, the researchers started making the tests harder. They moved the position of the virus-positive sample in the line. They added more positive samples. Then they replaced them with samples from healthy people.

Over dozens of such trials, four of the eight dogs had perfect scores. The worst-performing animal still judged at least eight in every 10 samples correctly.

The results were uploaded in early June to bioRxiv, a science website. They have not yet been peer reviewed. That means other scientists in this field have not reviewed the test methods and outcomes. (Those steps are usually essential before a study gets accepted for publication in a research journal.)

Still, the findings already have gotten notice. And other researchers - including ones in Australia, Lebanon, Argentina and Brazil - have begun reporting similar results.

Meanwhile, researchers in Germany are taking a slightly different path to canine detection of COVID-19. Their dogs are sniffing saliva samples. Just as in the study by Grandjean's team, the dogs don't touch the samples. They again sniff samples through a steel cone.

To sniff or not to sniff

Exposing dogs to saliva samples worries Colin Furness. He's an epidemiologist, or disease detective, in Canada at the University of Toronto. The virus that causes COVID-19 can be transmitted in droplets from infected people's mouths when they speak, cough or sneeze, he notes. "Using sweat sounds a lot safer to me," says Furness, who did not take part in either study.

Furness was not surprised to learn dogs can sniff out COVID-infected people. After all, they have a much better sense of smell than do people. They've already been used to detect diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease, he notes.

"I think COVID-sniffing dogs could be really useful in schools," says Furness. "Let the dogs give the kids a sniff."

Grandjean says that certainly should be possible. But some people fear dogs. That's why getting them to sniff sweat from cotton swabs is probably better, he says. In fact, sniffer dogs are already working to identify infected passengers at an airport in the United Arab Emirates by smelling swabs rubbed on the travelers' armpits.

Grandjean would like to see more airports and border crossings use dogs to find infected people. Conventional laboratory tests for the virus take at least 24 hours to deliver results. "The dogs can give you a positive result immediately," he says.

Police dogs are already at work at Dubai International Airport sniffing for people who might be infected with COVID-19. It's an early test of a new approach to screening travelers for the novel coronavirus.

Power Words
More About Power Words

Alzheimer's disease: An incurable brain disease that can cause confusion, mood changes and problems with memory, language, behavior and problem solving. No cause or cure is known.

cancer: Any of more than 100 different diseases, each characterized by the rapid, uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. The development and growth of cancers, also known as malignancies, can lead to tumors, pain and death.

canine: Members of the biological family of canids. These are carnivores and omnivores. The family includes dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals and coyotes.

colon: (in biology) The majority of the large intestine, it runs between the cecum (a pouch below the small intestine) and the rectum. Foods are not digested in the colon, although this tissue lubricates wastes that will be excreted. Some liquids and salts, however, will be removed from materials stored in the colon before excretion.

coronavirus: A family of viruses named for the crown-like spikes on their surface (corona means "crown" in Latin). Coronaviruses cause the common cold. The family also includes viruses that cause far more serious infections, including SARS.

COVID-19: A name given the coronavirus that caused a massive outbreak of potentially lethal disease, beginning in December 2019. Symptoms included pneumonia, fever, headaches and trouble breathing.

diagnose: To analyze clues or symptoms in the search for their cause. The conclusion usually results in a diagnosis - identification of the causal problem or disease.

epidemiologist: Like health detectives, these researchers figure out what causes a particular illness and how to limit its spread.

field: An area of study, as in: Her field of research was biology. Also a term to describe a real-world environment in which some research is conducted, such as at sea, in a forest, on a mountaintop or on a city street. It is the opposite of an artificial setting, such as a research laboratory.

journal: (in science) A publication in which scientists share their research findings with experts (and sometimes even the public). Some journals publish papers from all fields of science, technology, engineering and math, while others are specific to a single subject. The best journals are peer-reviewed: They send all submitted articles to outside experts to be read and critiqued. The goal, here, is to prevent the publication of mistakes, fraud or sloppy work.

peer review: (in science) A process in which scientists in a field carefully read and critique the work of their peers before it is published in a scientific journal. Peer review helps to prevent sloppy science and bad mistakes from being published.

plastic: Any of a series of materials that are easily deformable; or synthetic materials that have been made from polymers (long strings of some building-block molecule) that tend to be lightweight, inexpensive and resistant to degradation.

symptom: A physical or mental indicator generally regarded to be characteristic of a disease. Sometimes a single symptom - especially a general one, such as fever or pain - can be a sign of any of many different types of injury or disease.

veterinary: Having to do with animal medicine or health care.

virus: Tiny infectious particles consisting of RNA or DNA surrounded by protein. Viruses can reproduce only by injecting their genetic material into the cells of living creatures. Although scientists frequently refer to viruses as live or dead, in fact no virus is truly alive. It doesn't eat like animals do, or make its own food the way plants do. It must hijack the cellular machinery of a living cell in order to survive.

Sharon Oosthoek is a freelance science journalist. She likes to write about animals and their habitats. Sharon also really likes chocolate. Her sons have learned to hide their Halloween candy.

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Viral scents? Dogs sniff out coronavirus in human sweat

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Sweat from people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 has a distinct smell. We can't detect it. Dogs, it now turns out, can. Over the past few months, research teams around the world have been training dogs to sniff out this coronavirus.

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A few things about me

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My favorite activity oustide of School is for sure soccer

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The best part of my summer was going to see my cousins and grandparents in Nashville we pplayed wiffleball, went out to eat twice, had a seafood boil, played with their dog, and just hung out and talked.