A cuddly coworker: Sydney Water sniffer dogs

Just in case you missed this news story earlier this year. We've got very 'impawtant' four-legged staff.

How does this relate to chemistry?

Well, we're just us applying a bit of Module 8, new (old) chemical ideas!

We've known for millennia that man's best friend has a great sense of smell. Scientist have been documenting this for a long time. In fact, it's said they have " smell receptors 10,000 times more accurate than humans".

Think about the parallels of sniffer dogs and 'mechanical sniffers' your studying in the classroom. Analytical tools like mass spectrometry. They both can pick up compounds coming from a source, detecting it and measure certain qualities like the 'strength' of a signal, albeit in very different ways.

We use a range of analytical tools that work great in the Sydney Water Monitoring Services labs, but these very cuddly coworkers are another innovation to help. They complement our other approaches to monitor our water network in the field and protect the environment.