4. Ants have the ability to find out cancerous cells in humans, a new study has discovered, suggesting they could be used for cancer diagnosis (诊断) in future.
Ants can discover the cancerous cells which are different from healthy cells, thanks to their sense of smell, the study also added, ants could turn out to be better at locating (定位) cancerous cells in humans than dogs.
To improve their research, the scientists had tests with 36 ants, smelling cells under an experiment with a lower cost and efficient study. First, they exposed (暴露) the ants to the smell of a sample of cancerous human cells, then they were given sugar for a prize. In a second step, the scientists exposed the ants to two different smells. One was a new smell and the second was the smell of the cancerous cells. Finally, the ants followed the cancerous cells directly with the smell they had smelt in the first step. This test shows that ants can tell the differences between the cancerous cells and healthy cells with high talent, capability to learn quickly, points out CNRS in a news.
This isn't the first time that scientists have used the animal sense of smell to find cancerous cells. For example, dogs' noses are fit for medical diagnosis and used for the detection of cancer, which can offer the proper medical treatment, the scientists explained. However, training them to do so requires several months to a year.
The test could be used in various of other smell tasks, such as finding the differences among the drugs, explosives (炸药), spoiled food, or other diseases.