Word: sniff
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Though police dogs have played an important role in the $19 billion war on drugs, their noses simply aren't as keen as Hunt and Stubbs' creation, which can sniff out a few trillionths of a gram of an illegal substance. The two scientists say their device--which is still a prototype but will probably cost considerably less than the $80,000 worth of crime-lab equipment now being used for such tasks--makes economic sense. And because the artificial nose, according to Stubbs, "determines on the spot whether cocaine or other substances are present," it could also eliminate...
...explosives. Since the cantilever sensors are carved out with the same technology used to build computer chips, the detector should ultimately cost only tens of dollars. In airports today the only machine as sensitive--the mass spectrometer--is too large to carry around, costs $100,000 and can't "sniff out" explosives molecules...
...high in the window, this whimsical cosmetics grocer packages its fresh, handmade lotions in what appear to be pints of ice cream--complete with sell-by dates--and arranges fistfuls of bath salts in produce-like pyramids of color. An overzealous employee is roaming the store, commanding shoppers to sniff the new Honey, I Washed the Kids soap, which, like most Lush products, looks and smells good enough to eat. "I actually licked a bar the other day," confesses the giddy young saleswoman. "For the first two seconds, it tasted like honey, and then it tasted like soap...
...Vidalenc, whose employer, Groupe Bertrand, is one of a few family firms that dominates beverage distribution in France. (Bertrand is now a subsidiary of Dutch brewer Heineken.) These brasseurs - many of whom just happen to come from the Auvergne - serve as informal bankers to the café trade. They sniff out Auvergnats most likely to keep their beer flowing freely and advance them cash to buy a place of their own. "Interest" comes in the form of slightly higher prices on the beverages they sell the new café owner under exclusive contracts. Everybody comes out ahead...
...output compared with European clothiers'. The endless search for the next new thing, dubbed shinhatsubai in Japanese, affects everything from orange juice at the convenience store, which contains less pulp in the summer months, to ever so slightly different shades of khaki cargo pants for each season. Some fashionistas sniff that mix-and-match collaboration is simply this year's shinhatsubai. But the trend's champions argue that this craze might have a longer shelf life because it allows both the haute designers and street labels to diversify into each other's audiences...