Stereo Smelling Mole
Mammals, such as humans, can see in stereo and can hear in stereo, but there is a long standing scientific controversy that mammals can smell in stereo. The common mole (Scalopus aquaticus) uses it's stereo smelling to track and sniff out their prey. Stereo sniffing guides a mammal to an order source, and leads them to their food. The research first started when Kenneth Catania thought that the moles nostrils were way to close to each other to detect odors. The research continued and the came to a pleasant surprise that moles use stereo odor clues to track them toward their food, which they rely a lot on. From this research there is skeptical ideas that both dogs and pigs could have stereo smelling.
Catania conducted an experiment with the moles by placing food 180 degrees around them in chambers. The chambers were temporarily sealed until they switched one at a time open. The moles ended up going to the food on a direct path in less than five seconds by noticing the change in air pressure. Continuing the experiment, Catania placed a plastic tube in their right nostril, and it showed that the moles took a path that veered drastically to the left but they still found the food, it just took them more time. This also applied to the left nostril, but they veered to the right instead. These studies showed that the moles have a unique sense of smell that allows them to sniff out their food and guide them too it.
NOS Themes
- Science is based on evidence
- Science is collaborative
- Role of motivation and curiosity
- Science is subject to debate and tentative
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| Common Mole |
Marla Albanese 2nd Hour: I found your post to be very interesting so I found an article on a dog's sense of smell showing their sense being as incredible as a mole.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/dogs-sense-of-smell.html
The article explains how dogs noses are different than ours and why they can smell better than us. Dogs have about 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, whereas we have only six million. Also, the part of a dog's brain that controls smell is 40 times better than our speaking part of the brain, which was studied by bioengineer Brent Craven and his team. Dogs noses also work different than ours. We breathe and smell through the same airway, where dogs have a flap of tissue that allows their nostril to separate the two functions. Craven and his team working to create a artificial dog nose, that can sniff odors as well as dogs can.