Dogs have a habit of sniffing bums and crotches – O.K. when performed on another canine, but socially embarrassing when your dinner guests are having to fend off a dog intent on sniffing their genitalia.
Next time this happens to you or someone you know, don’t just brush the dog off (or give it a sly kick when the owner isn’t looking), go see your doctor and ask to be tested for prostate cancer. Seems dogs are pretty damn good at detecting the smell of cancer cells in human urine and are more accurate predictors of whether a man has prostate cancer than traditional urine sample tests.
There are practical problems using dogs in the surgery, however – that friggin cold nose for a start (click here) – so future research is likely to concentrate on identifying the molecules the dogs are reacting to and then build an electronic sensor to detect these.
