IS THIS the most sensitive nose on the planet? Male cotton leaf worm moths can detect the female’s sex pheromone at a concentration of just five molecules in 10 millilitres of air.
Bill Hansson at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp compares it to being able to detect that a sugar cube has been thrown into a medium-sized lake from one sip of the water. He and his team discovered the moth’s remarkable ability by recording the heartbeat of insects subjected to different odours. Minute amounts of pheromone were enough to trigger a jump in heart rate (Chemical…
