Dogs

12 May 2010

Today was my last day of class for the semester. I’m still not done with the work, however, as my final paper needs to be turned in on Monday by 5:00, but at least I’m through with a three hour class every Wednesday night.

Our professor asked us to reflect on the course by writing down a few things, and I decided to list the main texts we examined this semester, ranking them by how well I liked them:

Almost an Evening, by Ethan Coen

A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry

The Best American Short Stories 2009, edited by Alice Sebold

Limbo, directed by John Sayles

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

Thomas and Beulah, by Rita Dove

When the professor asked us to share our thoughts, I commented that I though I didn’t think everything we read in class was top-notch, my appreciation for each text was enhanced after discussing them in class and writing about them – “unpacking the texts.”

If you’re looking for recommendations on what to look into, I say: read Almost an Evening. I liked it so much, I’m gonna keep the book instead of selling it back to the store. The next three…sure, if you’d like, you can check ’em out. Concerning the matter of the collection of short stories, the best of the buch was “Rubiaux Rising.” I am hereby endorsing readership of this short story – the shortest in the book – but save yourself the cost of that whole book (in which you’d be forced to buy 19 other stories that aren’t as good); try finding a copy online. The last two items on the list, don’t bother.

I turned in 4 papers based on the above texts. I’ll post my grades later, once I have them.

13 May 2010

Today I attended the Minnesota Chromatography Forum’s spring symposium; somewhat of a tradition for my co-workers and me. I’ve attended in 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008 and today. It basically consists of several short presentations, and I go from room to room trying to catch the most job-relevant ones.

It probably goes without saying, but the most interesting presentation I listened to was the one that had the least applicability to my work.

Professor John Goodpaster delivered the keynote address titled “What Do Explosives Smell Like? Characterizing the Volatile Compounds Available to Explosive-Detecting Canines Using Gas and Liquid Chromatography.”

Despite this horrendous title, I liked what I heard. Here are some tidbits…

As far as we humans can tell, there’s no variability in the sniffing ability of various dog breeds. The breeds that are most often chosen for sniffing work are chosen by virtue of their size, intelligence and temperament. The three most commonly used breeds are springer spaniels, Labrador retrievers, and German shepherds.

There are over 30 applications for dogs’ sniffers in the humans’ world. These include searching for illegal drugs, bombs, cancer cells (!), and even fruits and vegetation that are illegally smuggled into a country. This latter application often employs beagles, who run around the customs area of airports searching for contraband.

Here’s a big advantage of using dogs for such work over instrumentation (or, as the Professor called it, Lab vs. lab): Dogs are not invasive. People don’t like having their bags searched. They don’t readily give up swabs of the inside of their mouth, and they do not like cavity searches. Get a friendly beagle running around, however, and people practically throw themselves over the canine, fawning over them with sentiments like “oh what a cute puppy.” Also, a dog’s nose is always working; no need to profile or seek a court order – just as we immediately begin scanning a new area with our eyes, a dog does the same with his/her nose.

Dogs trained to search out explosives are taught passive detection. Active detection, often used in seeking out cocaine, is when the dog barks, wags their tails, and even starts scratching at the container housing the drugs. I hope I don’t have to explain why this is a bad idea for a dog who finds explosives. One problem however, is that the dog is excited, both because it’s achieved its goal, and also becuase it knows a reward will be forthcoming, so teaching the canine to sit still with all this excitement brewing takes some training and discipline.

Another problem with dogs: like human noses, their noses shut down when overloaded; their noses detect differences. Think of it this way: you walk into a kitchen and you say: “wow, it smells great in here.” But stay in the kitchen for a few minutes, however, and you no longer notice the smell.

But you’ be surprised how fast these dogs can detect explosives. In one experiment, 100g of explosive compounds were placed in a small can (about the size of a soup can), which was then placed inside a larger can. Five other cans were spaced around, some containing nothing, and others containing odors designed to confuse the dog. This handler releases her dog, who then proceeds to run past each canister. The dog didn’t linger at each canister by any means; it went at full sprint. After passing the third canister, he had to double-back – as he was going so fast – took a quick sniff to be sure, then sat down next to the canister, his way of saying “it’s in here.”

This was illustrated with humans: we could run past a line of people and immediately spot (by sight) the one person we know. But smelling works even better, because odors “smear” across the air, so a canine is already picking up on an odor before it even focuses on the one with the substance.

Of course, this can also pose a problem: some dogs have been brought into warehouses or onto ships and just immediately sat down – the contraband is everywhere, so the dog figures “hey, why look for it? It’s all around.” Some criminals take advantage of this by placing, say, a small bag of cocaine in a larger container filled with coffee beans. Even then, though, a little bit more sniffing and most dogs can still spot the desired drug.

Amazing. I just can’t understand how a species with that phenomenal of an olfactory system can possibly stand ramming their snouts into their fellow dogs’ butts. Maybe I’ll find out next year.