UNLEASH your inner bloodhound and start sniffing. Humans can follow scent trails in the same way as dogs – and they improve with practice.
Jess Porter and Noam Sobel at the University of California, Berkeley, and their colleagues asked 32 people to follow a 10-metre scent trail (yellow line in Photo) of chocolate essence through open grass using only their noses. Two-thirds of them could (red line in Photo).
They then trained four volunteers three times a day for three days to see whether they improved with practice. After training, the subjects followed the trail more accurately and at more…
