Soon, honey bees to sniff out cancer
- November 26, 2013, 3:20 pm
- Health News
- 114 Views
ISLAMABAD, Nov 26 (Online): Researchers have said that we can train honey bees to detect certain early-stage cancers in human.
New research from Inscentinel, a UK-based firm specializing in insect research, suggested that honey bees could be trained to do such type of work.
Using their breakthrough, Portuguese designer Susana Soares invented a glass device with two enclosures: a small chamber in which the patient breathes into and a larger chamber where trained bees are kept.
If the bees detect the odour they were trained to pinpoint they are going to rush into the smaller chamber where the breath is.
Bees are able to detect odours that a human nose can't because of their super-sensitive sense of smell.
The bees are trained by exposing them to smell, then feeding them sugar, so they associate the odour with a food reward.
