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Identifying People By Odor As Effective As FingerprintingComments:157
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Nov 12, 2008 01:13 AM
from the can-you-smell-me-now dept.
from the can-you-smell-me-now dept.
A study has found that everybody has a unique body odor, like their fingerprints, that could be used as an unique identifier. The study showed that a persons unique odor stayed the same even if they varied their diet with strong smelling foods such as garlic and spices. "These findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals," said Monell chemist Jae Kwak. I would have thought that hundreds of years of dogs tracking people would have proved this, but it's nice to know that science has figured it out officially now.
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Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is this even Idle? This is actually somewhat interesting.... I hate Idle, Btw.
-Taylor
Obviously... (Score:5, Funny)
It's on Idle because this idea was invented by Shampoo.
Re: (Score:2)
What would Shampoo do?
Re:Obviously... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do identical twins put off the same odor?
Re:Obviously... (Score:4, Informative)
I agree.
TRIVIA - Smelling people can also reveal your mate. A quick whiff allows the body to detect a person's genetic makeup, and we feel attracted to those with genes opposite to ours.
The use of deodorants and birth control pills can disrupt this natural process (your mate's smell is masked or changed).
Re: (Score:2)
It's on Idle because this idea was invented by Shampoo.
Stasi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi [wikipedia.org]
East-German Secret Police
"During an interview the seats were covered with a cotton sheet, to collect the perspiration of the victim. His name was written in a glass and the sheet was kept in the archives. Other common ways that the scents would be collected is through breaking into a home and taking parts of garments. The most common garment taken was underpants, because of how close the garment is to the skin".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, so the underpants gnomes are Nazis? I guess we figured out what the missing part of:
1. Steal underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!
was.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I was about to say something like that. This does have quite a bit of relevance to forensic examination, biometrics, chilling effects, avenues for technology, it's practically a topic for Slashdot paradise. I'm sure Microsoft will find a way to, dare I say it... stick their noses in it?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
My dog already knew and understood this, that does not speak well for science.
Re: (Score:2)
Then how does it smell?
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
awful.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate Idle, Btw.
Yet you continue to read it... interesting...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Try running this then:
#!/bin/sh
while true; do
fork
done
What porn site did that picture come from? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What porn site did that picture come from? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Armpit odor isn't actually generated by the human body itself: it's caused by bacteria feeding on "exudates". That's also true of bad breath. One of the most effective deodorants you can find is a triple antibiotic.
If that's true of the entire body in general, then simply eliminating - or substituting - the bacteria and other freeloaders might very well change this odor signature.
farts (Score:3, Funny)
finger prints arent that unique! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:finger prints arent that unique! (Score:5, Informative)
the idea that fingerprints are unique is stupid, especially for anyone who is actually in law enforcement or forensics. you need 12 count it TWELVE different points of matching to even get a fingerprint submitted for evidence. so if this odor is just as effective that means its pretty much a scare tactic as much as "we got your fingerprints at the scene!" is
I wouldn't call it stupid, just incorrect when all possibilities are tried.
Aside from genetically-identical twins, there are a rare few known cases where people do have matching fingerprints (it's been awhile since I read the article but I seem to recall a resolution of around a thousand comparison points in one such case). However, with the incredibly low occurrence rate for this duplication, fingerprints still reign as the current top method for human identity verification (DNA matching takes alot more time and still isn't 100% accurate).
The article and summary are misleading, as well. This study was only performed on mice, not humans. There is additional doubt introduced from the lack of description of the experimental procedure. If the mice weren't separated long enough after the diet change, then a sufficient amount of the recognized scent may have remained for the other mice to make correct identifications.
The comment about dogs in the summary may be incorrect as well, but I don't really know. I have never read about any studies that tried to have a dog track a person from a previous scent marker after they've undergone a radical diet change and sufficient time for the body to remove the chemical traces of the old diet. They usually give dogs an item that someone has used recently in order to track them by scent.
I do know two things from my personal experiences as a person with a strong sense of smell:
1. In favor of the results that the articles puts forward as 'fact' - without perfumes, colognes, other scented body products or even any noticeable sweat; a woman definitely smells different than a man.
2. Disagreeing with the postulate from the results of the study - How best to put this delicately? The scent of certain subsets of people that stereotypically consume specific diets does indeed match scents from those diets when their scent becomes strong enough.
Of course, I'm not a canine, so regardless of my personal experience, there may indeed be elements of a person's scent that are as unique as their DNA. Actually, if a dog's sense of smell is advanced enough, their olfactory processing could be doing on-the-fly DNA matching. Though, I've never seen someone even postulate a study that could confirm that little bit of information.
I do agree with a couple of the other comments so far. This news has enough merit to be under a section other than Idle.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's comparable to fingerprints, and if fingerprints are already cross-referenced with DNA, iris and voice patterns, psychological profiles, and many other personally identifying traits of someone, then what does that do when you add odor to the list of what makes a person a person?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Two (Score:2)
If the title of the next Idle story isn't "Silent But Deadly", I'm going to be incredibly disappointed.
So what happens (Score:2)
when one wears deodorant or perfume? Does the smell go away?
Re: (Score:2)
No.
A good analogy is having a conversation in a crowded room with lots of other conversations going on at once. Your voice doesn't go away just because it is mixed with other sounds. But at a certain point, it will become hard to distinguish from the rest.
The important difference is that humans are better at pinpointing one sound out of many. We are relatively bad at doing the same with scent.
Dogs (and other animals), however are great at this. That's how scent-tracking works, and it's how drug or bomb
Re: (Score:2)
Dogs vs. Control groups (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have thought that hundreds of years of dogs tracking people would have proved this, but it's nice to know that science has figured it out officially now.
.
First of all, tracking is not identifying. Second of all, if two people have the same scent but non-overlapping movement paths, you can successfully track the one whose path you're on, so ability to track is not a very pure way of measuring smell-based distinguishability. Thirdly, dogs probably have vastly different ability levels for tracking by smell vs. tracking by fingerprint due to the two leaving different amounts of trail material. Fourthly throughout these years, have comparisons been made between smell-dogs and print-dogs? And fifthly, just because the market uses dogs to track on smell doesn't mean it's the best way to even track people: there may be market inertia factors and/or cost/benefit ratios that favor using smelling dogs.
.
Science has not figured out that hunting by smell works. They've found out that odors are better than fingerprints for identifying people. If it had gone the other way, should we all go and replace our dogs? No, they probably work best in practice, due to better hardware support for the odor-based tracking.
Re: (Score:2)
"Dogs suck at tracking people in urban environments. They can do a ridiculously good job in the country, but put them in downtown New York and they lose the scent immediately. That would indicate that the odor is either not unique, or that dogs are not capable of detecting the subtle differences."
Or it could just mean that other smells and stimuli compete for the dog's attention, masking the scent to be tracked. Urban environments are filled with all kinds of odors, noises, and pollution. This probably plays as much a role in tracking as the actual distinctiveness of a smell itself.
What about vodka? (Score:3, Interesting)
I drink a lot (a fifth of vodka every two days, on average). One of my coworkers, out of 12+, claims she can smell the hell out of it on me. I shower each morning and two different Axe products are part of my showering repertoire. While I don't doubt that I sweat out some portion of the previous night's alcohol during the course of the work day, I'm curious where the threshold is.
I put back about 375ml of vodka per night - mixed with various other beverages, typically Diet Mt. Dew, a random Gatorade, or one of Ocean Spray's delicious juices. Some nights I have no vodka, but drink 6 to 12 beers instead, depending upon the brand. And from time to time, such as last night, I'll get to sleep simply by virtue of 100mg Diphenhydramine HCl without having a drop of alcohol. This coworker swears she can still smell it, even after I've gone 48 hours and 2 or more showers since my last drink.
I suspect that certain people have unusually strong senses of smell. We know that dogs do. I hope that I don't have any offensive BO at work, and I'd doubly hope that if I did, someone would tell me about it. That only a single coworker has mentioned her ability to "smell the booze on me" makes me paranoid, but it also makes me wonder. Is she hypersensitive, or are all of my other coworkers picking up on it and just being too polite to say anything? Knowing most of my coworkers very fondly, I suspect the former.
Dogs have never liked me - or conversely, they've always liked me too much. To me, canines exhibit excessive hyperactivity. That's why I have a cat instead. She might be the boss of my house, but the only time she freaks out is when I drop some fresh catnip somewhere nearby.
Re: (Score:2)
When I worked at Wendys we had a guy there who had his own distinctive smell, that's why he was the designated dishwasher.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Having never had a sense of smell myself, at all, and not knowing that body odour actually even existed until I hit about 20 years of age, I'm going to have to put this down to the latter. People are far more likely to say nothing than to speak up. This includes family, close friends, acquaintances, and total strangers.
Sometimes I forget to slap on deodorant so I'll quite literally ask anyone close by if I smell bad. Trust me, nobody wants to answer that question, let alone have someone ask it. It's a loade
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure whether mine works or not.. how would you know? People are often saying that things like roses 'smell nice' when all I can smell is that slightly damp smell that all plants smell of...
I also can't smell body odour, but I'm not convinced half the people that say they can are able to.. they're conditioned to by advertising for deoderants etc. - they see someone that looks like they haven't washed for a few days and go 'they smell' without any other evidence.
What isn't said is more important than what is. (Score:2)
Notice that they carefully do not make this distinction.
Animals, including dogs, CAN be confused by confounding odors. And those odors do include things in your diet, as well as applied scents like cologne.
YOUR odor might not change... but that does not mean that your smell cannot change, or that things that rely on smell (like chemical sensors) will recognize you.
Your gait is also unique (Score:2)
Not sure about uniquely identifying (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure about odor on men (as I'm not interested in men, thank you), but odor on each woman is quite distinctive if you have intimate contact with her. That's only from personal experience (anecdote), and by no means a scientific study.
The five women I have (or had) intimate relationship with, I can distinguish each one of them with my eyes blind-folded. A woman's distinctive smell are usually from the cheek, on the neck, from behind the ear, on the lips, etc. It's definitely distinctive, but can it be used as a unique identifier, I'm not sure.
Thinking about it, each woman having a distinctive oder is quite natural, as this is the same thing as on other animals. After all these years of evolution, humans do not rely on smell anymore to mate or to find a mate, therefore, it has become less important and less obvious. But I think it's still there, if you pay attention to it.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah, I agree with you one hundred percent. And apart from the cheek, the neck, behind the ear and on the lips, there was always one other place that had a very distinctive smell to it. Now what was that again ? It was something that I had to wash off vigorously with soap before returning to the wife, that's for sure. Come, help me out !
My Balls (Score:2)
Fantastic!
Now that you guys have found my balls.... through their signature fingerprint(s), you can, well, ummmm....
Alien 4 - Resurrection (Score:2, Funny)
Idle submission process (Score:3, Insightful)
Does idle base its story submissions solely by how well the content matches up to whatever pictures they happen have lying around?
alternative title: (Score:2)
how to genetically alter humans to smell like dogs...
Stasi "police" of the Soviets (Score:4, Interesting)
Reliable like fingerprints? (Score:3, Informative)
"These findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals"
Slightly off-topic, but since when do fingerprints qualify as a reliable way to identify a person? They can easily be faked, and once they are, there's no way to revoke them. It's like having a really bad passport...
Re:Oh... (Score:5, Insightful)
You people. First you complain that Idle isn't any good, and now you're complaining that it shouldn't be any good?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if idle has good articles what's the difference between Idle and not-Idle...?
Additionally, if Idle isn't any good, then most people think it's a waste. No contradiction here.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if idle has good articles what's the difference between Idle and not-Idle...?
An overabundance of free time and an inability to occupy it with anything meaningful.
Re: (Score:2)
Who's free time would that be exactly?
Re: (Score:2)
j"ust adds to my feelings that many /. users are simply stuck in very narrow views of what slashdot is supposed to be about"
I find it interesting that most of the users who complain about idle never have low uids. Not that a high uid necessarily implies a new user, but still. Most importantly, as registered users they can turn idle off completely, so WTF is all I'm saying.
Re:Oh... (Score:4, Insightful)
You people. First you complain that Idle isn't any good, and now you're complaining that it shouldn't be any good?
No, I'm complaining that there is already a section for this article, it's called "Science", and that i feel people are artificially putting this in the wrong category to make it seem more legitimate.
The idea behind the idle section is to have articles that are sort of pointless - that's just the point, i'm not ragging on it. Thing is, i don't like that idea, i think it's stupid.
-Taylor
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They've also been using the section for "oddball" stories, of which this clearly fits.
In fact, with the exception of a few YouTube videos that showed up early in the life of Idle, most of the stuff posted in Idle that's made it to the front page is stuff that would have been posted on Slashdot anyway, but under a different category.
Re: (Score:2)
How is this oddball at all? It's horribly obvious and has a scientific basis. That's not oddball, it's Science, and as others have pointed out, there is already such a section. Thinking that this is an "oddball" discovery is about the same as thinking that knowing that the earth is not flat is an "oddball" discovery, and only labels you as a provincial putz. Is it "weird" because it has to do with body odor, with which Americans are inordinately uncomfortable?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)