the Double Nosed Dogs and the People Smashing Meteorites

Windbit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6940289.stm

I guess weird discoveries come in twos. I think the dog's more interesting, though. Apparently individuals from that breed are much more likely to be born with two noses, which supposedly makes their sense of smell even better than a normal dog's. Maybe the double nose is the next stage of dog evolution?

brandotheninjamaster

That is a strange story...if they could successfully breed dogs like that they could be quite useful for certain things. In the story the dog is described as aggressive more than once, that could hamper their usefulness if that breed of dog is aggressive.

Loren Michael

I can't read the story.

I think China may be involved.

nexuscrawler

Seems like the double nosed ones also have a tendency to die young.

Glal

"This breed could be used for sniffing out mines or narcotics because they have an enhanced sense of smell."

"That is not how noses work!"

Irond Will

brandotheninjamaster wrote: »

That is a strange story...if they could successfully breed dogs like that they could be quite useful for certain things. In the story the dog is described as aggressive more than once, that could hamper their usefulness if that breed of dog is aggressive.

Maybe he just hates smelly people twice as much as an average dog.

Æthelred

Loren Michael wrote: »

I can't read the story.

I think China may be involved.

BBC's blocked in China. Badge of honour really.

brandotheninjamaster

Irond Will wrote: »

brandotheninjamaster wrote: »

That is a strange story...if they could successfully breed dogs like that they could be quite useful for certain things. In the story the dog is described as aggressive more than once, that could hamper their usefulness if that breed of dog is aggressive.

Maybe he just hates smelly people twice as much as an average dog.

then i fart in his general direction!

DarkHawke

I think the real story here is that there's an explorer in the Amazon called Colonel Blashford-Snell. I mean, come on, I wouldn't expect to see a name like that outside of a Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.

Al_wat

That doesn't look like two noses. It looks like one nose split in two. He has two half noses.

Irond Will

I say, Blashford-Snell, the quality of these primitive people is quite better than those on that excursion to Ghana.

Johannen

Will... did you put "the" infront of the thread title?

jothki

DarkHawke wrote: »

I think the real story here is that there's an explorer in the Amazon called Colonel Blashford-Snell. I mean, come on, I wouldn't expect to see a name like that outside of a Edgar Rice Burroughs novel.

You don't hear those kinds of names very often because people like them keep being sent into jungles.

Irond Will

Johannen wrote: »

Will... did you put "the" infront of the thread title?

What?

No!







[tiny]maybe[/tiny]

jothki

Irond Will wrote: »

Johannen wrote: »

Will... did you put "the" infront of the thread title?

What?

No!







[tiny]maybe[/tiny]

[tiny]Another cool feature of the new forums rears its head, it seems. Is there a list of these tags anywhere?[/tiny]

UndefinedMonkey

That's pretty interesting. How would something with two noses smell, I wonder.

Terrible, I'll wager.

The Muffin Man

Glal wrote: »

"This breed could be used for sniffing out mines or narcotics because they have an enhanced sense of smell."

"NOSES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!"

Sceptre

So wait... how DO noses work?

Zsetrek

Im pretty sure that having two noses would enhance your sense of smell (more receptors = better sense - it's why one-nosed dogs have a better sense of smell than humans), so unless there's some kind of nose-brain interface thing going on here...

Also:

My dog has two noses!
How does he smell?
...

Windbit

I can see it now the perfect dog...

Four noses! Two normal eyes, and one chameleon eye in the center! Giant ears that can be used as wings! Two long, powerful, double jointed legs! A tail that can fire poison-tipped darts!

Glal

Sceptre wrote: »

So wait... how DO noses work?

It's not the bit outside that detects scents, it's the receptors inside the snout. Unless he has two snouts or his snout is twice as large as normal, neither of which seems to be the case from the photos provided, this is not so.

DarkHawke

Also, it looks like each of those noses only has one nostril (as Al_wat said). So he might be able to smell a wider area because his nostrils are further spaced, but the actual smelling receptors are further back.

The Glock

Why does the article tell you that he likes salty biscuits?!

Low Key

Two noses shouldn't make a considerable difference to the number of receptors, seeing as most are in the muzzle. Maybe inter nose comparison is better than inter nostril comparison, but that should only be useful for scent tracking. Maybe they're just overestimating these dogs' abilities.

I wonder if the dog has a differently formed vomeronasal organ; it might explain some of his aggression. Or maybe he's just a bit of a dick.

Evil Multifarious

The Glock wrote: »

Why does the article tell you that he likes salty biscuits?!

Because wookita coot ittle doggie.

Gihgehls

Is it possible that he has double the number of receptors up in there?

FyreWulff

the tongue works as part of smelling, so it's more like 1.5x the smelling power.

Irond Will

Glal wrote: »

Sceptre wrote: »

So wait... how DO noses work?

It's not the bit outside that detects scents, it's the receptors inside the snout. Unless he has two snouts or his snout is twice as large as normal, neither of which seems to be the case from the photos provided, this is not so.

Could the sniff receptors be denser owing to the fact that it's duplicate organs?

Glal

I don't think it's likely an animal would have a sensory organ as huge as a canid's nose without getting as much crammed in there as possible by default.

Low Key

Yeah, there's no way to no until someone takes a look inside the dog, but I'm suspicious as to why two noses makes it sense of smell any better than one. Tracking smells maybe, but even that's a stretch.

Werrick

He spotted a rare breed of Double-Nosed Andean tiger hound, which has two noses, on a recent trip to Bolivia.

Apparently this writer works for the department of redundancy department.

Tastyfish

Low Key wrote: »

Two noses shouldn't make a considerable difference to the number of receptors, seeing as most are in the muzzle. Maybe inter nose comparison is better than inter nostril comparison, but that should only be useful for scent tracking. Maybe they're just overestimating these dogs' abilities.

I wonder if the dog has a differently formed vomeronasal organ; it might explain some of his aggression. Or maybe he's just a bit of a dick.

Just sounds like that Gregory is a bad influence to me, you know how pigs are.

As for two noses, would it be better far as working out the direction from which smells are coming from? Guess that would depend on how long two nosed dogs have been around.