How China's Pollution Sniffers Work

In China's Guangdong province, twelve volunteers have been trained to detect harmful pollution by using their sense of smell. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about China's pollution sniffers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and welcome to
the podcast. My name's Josh. The guy across from his
name's Chuck. Say Hi, Chuck, Hi, how are you hey? Chuck?
You know, I was reading an article today and basically

(00:21):
they've recently found out that air pollution, as if it
weren't bad enough for your lungs, it actually interferes with
your heart's electrical activity. You're kidding, No, No, I would
not kid about that, Chuck. I take the hearts electrical
activity very seriously. Yeah. So, um, basically, our bodies can
kind of get rid of particles. Then there's fine particles,

(00:43):
which are a little more difficult. Now we have something
called ultra fine particles sub microscopic. They basically get into
your body and just read all manner of havoc. And
as far as I know, we weren't aware that it
really interfered with any process of the heart up to
this point. But yeah, basically, um, I think it was
the Journal of the American Heart Association where this study

(01:06):
was published, and when somebody undergoes some sort of heart surgery,
that kind of thing, they recommend that they avoid traffic anyway, right,
for stress levels. And yeah, because you know how upset
you get in traffic. I've seen you don't. Don't pretend
like you don't know. I take the subway, bro, I'm
I'm traffic free, right, And why do you take the subway?
Because traffic makes me crazy? Precisely so, they used to

(01:29):
recommend that that heart patients stay away from traffic for
two to three weeks after getting back from the hospital,
and they still do, but now for this other reason,
because you know, all this traffic pollution can interfere with
your heart's electrical activity. Is this only big cities or
is it across the board? Across the board, I would imagine,
because I mean, if you're if you have your window

(01:50):
rolled down and you're in any kind of traffic, you're
just sucking that stuff. Course. And now some places are
worse than others. I know one place where they would
recommend you not drive after Where Where would that be? China? China? Yes,
pretty much anywhere in China. There are some rural parts
of China that are pretty clean. You know, lots of trees,
that kind of thing. But just about any city in

(02:12):
China is going to have a pretty high level pollution
as a matter of fact, as far as I know.
In two thousand and six, the World Bank Fine Bank
UH conducted a survey of the twenty most polluted cities
in the world. This is amazing to me. Sixteen of
the twenty we're in China. I know that's four fifths, right, Yeah,

(02:33):
that's four fifths by my math. That sounds good. That
is a lot. So I don't know if Beijing fell
off of that because they China pulled out all the
stops to keep Beijing's pollution down. During the Olympics, well,
I know, I remember watching I believe some was it cyclists,
US cyclists that kind of caused a little bit of
a stir when they showed up in Beijing wearing masks,

(02:55):
breathing masks. I hadn't seen that. I know that all
manner of athletes were saying that they may not go
compete in Beijing because they took very seriously the damage
it was going to do to their bodies. Yeah, they
were walking around wearing masks, and a lot of people
were pretty upset about that. Yeah, well, I mean, how
can you play I've seen pictures. I've never been to Beijing,
but unless these photos were retouched, it was it was

(03:15):
pretty serious stuff. Well I think I know where this
is leading. Yeah, I think you do too, because you know,
we planned it out ourselves. Pollution sniffing, right. Um, there
was a group that was assembled and as far as
I know, they weren't assembled specifically for the Olympics. I
don't think they've been disbanded. I guess is what I
mean that the Olympics are over um to walk around

(03:37):
a province in China, uh, the Guandong province. Please forgive
me any anyone of Chinese ancestry or from China for
that terrible, terrible pronunciation. But they walk around the Guandong
province and sniff out air pollution and they're trained to
do something, very highly trained. Actually, yeah, it's it's it's

(03:58):
kind of an unbelievable thing, but it's really true. It
is true. It is true. Again, I've never met any
of these people, but I can tell you from all
reports this is this is a real thing. Um. Basically,
they took they took a group of I guess, above
average smellers. I imagine that they're probably not smokers. There
was some requisition, um, and they took them into this

(04:20):
this laboratory and had them sniff different noxious smells to
train their senses. Right yeah, yeah, but they did it
very intensively. And there's actually a study um that came
out of I think Northwestern UH that showed that the
more you sniff a certain smell, the more of an

(04:40):
expert you becoming in right, you can hone in and
get more specific with it, because much more complex. So
I mean, for example, if you smell a flower, a
certain flower, first time you smell it, you've created a
it's been codd there's a there's a sense memory in
your brain memory and um, anytime you see at that

(05:00):
kind of flower, that set membory is probably going to
be triggered. So you'll be getting this visual information like, oh,
there's that flower, and this is what it smells like.
You know. Um, So once it becomes coated, it's there.
But it can the complexity of our idea of what
the thing smells like can be expanded and and subtracted
from as far as the more he's fine. Sure, So

(05:22):
this generally happens over time, Like you smell the flower
once in a while, and you know with the China
pollution sniffers. Uh, this was a very intensive training period.
It was over and over again, smell the sulfur. Smell
the sulfur. You have no choice, back of the net,
kind of sac blocked in a room smelling these things.
And it's not a pleasant task. And they even are

(05:45):
on records it's saying that it is no fun. But
because they were also trained to smell harmless smells as
well noxious like like terribly offensive odors, but ones that
weren't necessarily harmful. So aparently these people were trained to
walk past any you know, garbage dump or smoke stack

(06:05):
and go, you know, there's X amount of sulfur in there,
and I smell a little black carbon and maybe some
dog poop. That's not that bad, but it's in there.
Sure maybe so maybe so spring roll to say the least. So. Uh.
The one thing I never figured out was why I

(06:27):
got the who, the how, the wind, the what. I
never figured out the why Why would you train people
to smell? Well, I would think because they could pinpoint,
you know, pollution and do something about it. Or is
that not the case. Well, we we could anyway with
electronic sensors. Are you talking about the NASA device that's

(06:49):
one of many. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty
sure if you want, I've got car keys. I know
you took the train, But we could go to radio
shack right now, and I'm pretty sure we could probably
find some sort of old factory sensing device, an electronic
version of it check probably if it were a good
radio check. It would depend on the location. Um, but
I don't understand, like why you would train humans to

(07:12):
do this. The the one clear point is you can
send the radio check or the NASA old factory sensor
out and it will report back. You know, there's this
many parts per million of you know, carbon dioxide or
sulfur or whatever in the air, but it's not gonna
have any reaction a human would. So it's the human
would be like, you know, oh, there's sulfur dioxide and

(07:35):
I'm dying, which is really the one real drawback with
the pollution. Exactly when you have humans doing this, it
takes its toll on you know, not only their senses
but their health. So it does make you wonder why
they would send people in there. Precisely, and you never
found out. No, I never had a clue and as
a matter of fact, it was never spoken of in

(07:55):
any of the articles I read when I was researching this.
But um, it seemed to me the big elephant in
the room, like these people are going to die horrible
debts in the next few years. Well, and also there
that seems like their smell would deteriorate or at least
be you know, neutralized or something over time. Yeah, but
they're they're recertified every three years. The schedule was every

(08:16):
three years they would be re certified. So I guess
that kind of shows that they weren't going to be
disbanded after the Olympics. Um, because the the olfactory sense
does deteriorate over time. But the exposure to these harmful chemicals,
especially in the training uh seminar or segment of the
of the the whole pollution sniffing academy, UM, I would

(08:38):
think would really pose a serious health risk, right. I
would think they would use that, you know, we're talking
about the NASA thing and then to go the ENOS
is what they call it. It was just a cute
and of course is that love that name? And uh,
they'd use that on the space Shuttle right to detect
ammonia leaks, which makes a lot of sense that they
wouldn't send a human up in the space shuttle to
you know, sniff for money. It seems like it's around

(09:00):
is or her next thing like ammonia sniffer or I
break for ammonia right the well, the other the other
argument against that, aside from you know, that being a
suicide mission, is that a human just can't smell it
as as well as this enos can um. You know,
we can get you know, X number of parts per million.
Let's say, you know, several hundred parts per million before

(09:23):
we realize, oh, there's ammonia leak and I'm dead. This
enos can sniff something like I think one part per million,
one part per million, you're right, So it knows the
ammonia leak is going on long before any human has
even sniffed ammonia. You know how noxious and smelling ammonia is.
So that's that's the purpose of the enos and it

(09:44):
goes on. It's equally impressive um down here on Earth.
It can tell the difference between coke and pepsi. That's
so awesome, and not not by tasting obviously, no no, no,
just by smelling, just by smelling, and the other one, Uh,
it can sense it can it can sniff an electrical
fire before the fire actually breaks out. Yeah, so so

(10:06):
the Jet Propulsion Laboratories EENOS is a very valuable item
to have on board when you're in space. Well, one
thing I found interesting Joshua was reading this was the
way smell works is is sort of like the way
taste works. Yeah, we don't know, and I know we've
talked about that. Well, I'm talking about specifically the shape
of the smell receptors and taste receptors. Well, that's a
that's the theory. They have the same theory for how

(10:28):
we taste and how we smell. But they both boiled
down to the fact that their their theories. We don't
know for certain exactly what's going on. These are these
are pretty good theories. You want to you want to
tell them about the the receptor idea, Well, it's it's
about the the shape, like a certain smell will fit
a certain shape for the in the in the old
factory bundle. Is that what it's called, Yes, the old

(10:50):
factory nerve. Right, Well, these are receptors at the end,
they're all specialized exactly, but not too specialized, because one
thing it's found really interesting was that some of the molecules,
the shape and structure, have completely different smells right there.
That you can have two molecules that have the same shape,
same structure, you can't tell anything any difference between them,

(11:11):
but they have but they register as different smells, which
kind of shoots a hole in the I think it's
called the lock and key theory, which they have for
tastes as well. Uh, certain certain molecules unlock a certain receptor, right, Um,
so we've got the same thing for taste and in
the same thing for smell, and they're both equally shoddy theories,

(11:32):
although they're they're they're predominantly accepted theories. Right. But if
if the smell molecules can be the same, if they
can double up, does that explain things like maybe if
your fart smells like lasagna. I think if your fart
smells like lasagna, you may have some sort of synesthesia.
I'm not entirely certain, but you may want to consult

(11:52):
a physician if your fart smell like lasagna. I wasn't
speaking personally, I just use as an example. That's okay, chuck, okay, okay.
So um yeah, I think you have different different receptors
can be assaulted at the same time to produce a combination. Um,
much like jellybellies. You know have you have you ever
eaten jellybelly? Jelly beans? I'm not a jelly bean guy.

(12:15):
These things are not jelly beans alright. Anyway, if you
get a bag of it on the back, it says like,
you know too, blueberry plus one. I think toasted marshmallow
creates like the flavor of like a blueberry muffin. So
there's different recipes. Come up with your own. It's very fun.
Are these the ones that are kind of nasty too?
Like they have booger and across? I think you're confusing

(12:38):
a Harry Potter with reality again. Well, um, maybe I am.
They don't. I don't know, maybe they If anybody has
hallapeno flavored jelly beans, it would probably be jellybelly. Um.
But they they're they're generally pretty good. They have some
pretty good ones, although they do have some that are
non traditional, like coffee cappuccino and well, maybe we should

(13:01):
send some of these to our pollution sniffing friends in China.
Oh they could tell the difference, I guarantee. Yeah, so
you got everything you got that, you got the pollution
sniffers down. Yeah. I feel sorry for these guys. It's
done something a great job. They volunteered, Yes, they volunteered.
No one pressed them into service. Gereman now is long
long dead and so yes, and they are paid probably

(13:22):
pretty well, so don't feel too terribly bad. They're doing
this on their own accord, and they're helping, you know,
the people in Guangdong Province by keeping them from harm rightfully.
So yeah, we sold me good. And you can learn
more about pollution sniffers and how stuff works dot com.
We have a search bar that's waiting just for you.

(13:44):
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