My latest Seed article came out yesterday, and was received nicely I think. The piece was on a DARPA project where a persons smell could be analyzed and treated like a fingerprint — a unique signal of their identity. If smell detection were mastered, it could be used to track down wanted fugitives, terrorists, or whomever the government has decided they don’t like that week.
This was a story I had worked on for a long time. Its gensis came from a post on Defensetech in April. I read that post and thought it was interesting. Specifically, the third graph which discussed the science behind the “Unique Signature Detection Program.” But it was a blog post, so there weren’t any real sources outside of the public documents it quoted. I wondered if it would be possible to talk to the scientists doing the research for this and talk with them.
DARPA itself was no help. As you can see in the story, I got an email reply from a DARPA spokesperson who gave me real short cute answers, and also told me that I wouldn’t be able to talk with anybody inside of DARPA.
Luckily the scientists that DARPA hires to do their research are univeristy proffesors and when they are contacted, its a chance for them to get to talk to interested reporters.
From my research I got the impression that the technology is far from being effective. But the idea is sound. If dogs can recognize each other from butt smelling, why can’t we?