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posted by martyb on Saturday July 26 2014, @02:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the to-smell-well-or-to-smell-good dept.

Boffins have named elephants as the top sniffers in the animal kingdom, possessing twice as many functional olfactory receptors (ORs) genes as hounds. ORs help organisms detect odours in their environments.

Proving that Dumbo really is the mutt's nuts, the researchers also found that pachyderms outclassed the olfactory abilities of the rat — once thought to have the best nose of any animal. "Rats had the record for the largest number of [these] genes," said Yoshiihito Niimura, a molecular evolution researcher at The University of Tokyo in Japan. "Elephants have much more. It's almost double, so it's very surprising."

To analyse different animals' smelling abilities, boffins examined genome sequences from 13 different mammals, examining a total of 10,000 genes. They found that each mammal's smell genes were highly unique, with just three shared between them. An elephant has a mammoth 2,000 olfactory receptor genes, whereas humans have far fewer, as we stopped relying on our nose way back in the mists of evolutionary time.

The animals examined in the study are all descended from a common ancestor that lived 100 million years ago and is thought to have 781 OR genes. All the primates in the study lost more than half of all their smell genes during the process of evolution. Orangutans, for instance, shed some 70 per cent of their olfactory receptor genes. Humans have just 396 OR genes left and just one passed down from the common ancestor.

Can someone tell me how "highly unique" is different from "unique"?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @03:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @03:15AM (#74065)

    The obtuse notion of either/or uniqueness is ... obtuse. Everything is "unique" in some fashion at some level.

    • (Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Saturday July 26 2014, @03:30AM

      by SlimmPickens (1056) on Saturday July 26 2014, @03:30AM (#74069)

      It's not obtuse, especially when the topic is counting the number of OR genes.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @07:41AM (#74114)

      Everything is "unique" in some fashion at some level.

      Yup, my kid is a pretty little snowflake.

      • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:49AM

        by wonkey_monkey (279) on Saturday July 26 2014, @08:49AM (#74127) Homepage

        Yup, my kid is a pretty little snowflake.

        You didn't have to send him to school in a t-shirt that said so, though.

        --
        systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26 2014, @06:31PM (#74231)

      Unique mean one of a kind.

      Something can NOT be MORE one of a kind or VERY one of a kind or HIGHLY one of a kind.

      There are a number of such words where trying to add a modifier is just plain wrong.
      http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000269.htm [englishplus.com]

      -- gewg_

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dcollins on Saturday July 26 2014, @03:23AM

    by dcollins (1168) on Saturday July 26 2014, @03:23AM (#74068) Homepage

    "Can someone tell me how 'highly unique' is different from 'unique'?"

    Subjects X and Y are different; in fact, each is unique. Do they have just 1 point of difference between them, perhaps easily overlooked? Or do they have 9,997 points of difference, impossible to confuse? Then arguably they are highly unique: a large difference. Consider sum squared error as a possible metric.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 26 2014, @11:11PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 26 2014, @11:11PM (#74286) Journal
      True. The only fault I can find in regards with elephants and smell is that the margin should be rather long than wide.
      As in "Elephants: Best Sense of Smell by a Long Margin".
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28 2014, @01:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28 2014, @01:52PM (#74608)

      Obviously 'highly unique' is less than 'unique'. (former is quantitative, latter qualitative)

      Then again isn't everything unique? Isn't every sandwich unique? Every person? Every copy of a book? Isn't 1+1 unique from 2? Who knows what these silly constructs really mean...

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by quitte on Saturday July 26 2014, @10:34AM

    by quitte (306) on Saturday July 26 2014, @10:34AM (#74138) Journal

    how is the number of genes a metric for the sensitivity of a nose? I'd think the same way as number of lines of code is an indicator for quality of software.

    • (Score: 2) by bart9h on Saturday July 26 2014, @11:49AM

      by bart9h (767) on Saturday July 26 2014, @11:49AM (#74145)

      Exactly what I was thinking. Surely there are other factors too. You can have the genes, but not put them to good use. https://duckduckgo.com/?q= [duckduckgo.com]"has%20more%20genes%20than"

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by bart9h on Saturday July 26 2014, @11:51AM

        by bart9h (767) on Saturday July 26 2014, @11:51AM (#74146)

        Sorry, the link was supposed to be this [duckduckgo.com].

        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        Next time I will use the "Preview" button.
        ....

        • (Score: 2) by present_arms on Saturday July 26 2014, @01:34PM

          by present_arms (4392) on Saturday July 26 2014, @01:34PM (#74170) Homepage Journal

          I wish I had modpoints, that made me chuckle.

          offtopic and talking of modpoints, any chance I'll be furnished with any? :P

          --
          http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/