by Kevin Schofield

This weekend’s reads are two scientific research papers, both relatively short.

The first is the latest twist on dogs’ well-documented ability to diagnose certain diseases by detecting unique scents emanating from those afflicted with them — scents that are not detectable by humans. In the past, dogs have been trained to detect chronic conditions such as diabetes or Parkinson’s disease and potentially to predict an impending acute medical event such as a stroke, a heart attack, or an epileptic seizure.  Recently, researchers have had some success in training dogs to detect people infected with COVID — a very different kind of “rapid test” that one could imagine would be very handy in airports and other places where people gather.