Animals use their noses to focus their sense of smell, much
the same way that humans focus their eyes, new research at the University of
Chicago shows.
A research team studying rats found that animals adjust
their sense of smell through sniffing techniques that bring scents to receptors
in different parts of the nose. The sniffing patterns changed according to what
kind of substance the rats were attempting to detect.
The sense of smell is particularly important for many
animals, as they need it to detect predators and to search out food. “Dogs, for
instance, are quite dependent on their sense of smell,” said study author
Leslie Kay, associate professor of psychology and director of the Institute for
Mind & Biology at the University of Chicago. “But there are many chemicals
in the smells they detect, so detecting the one that might be from a predator
or an explosive, for instance, is a complex process.”