News
Engineers develop bio-machine nose that can “sniff” and classify odors
Engineers from Brown University in Rhode Island have invented a small, low-cost sensor device which is able to classify odors using input from a mimicked “sniffing” action. It’s called TruffleBot, and it’s here to raise the bar on electronic “noses”. It also works with Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive mini-computer popular with electronics hobbyists, students, and others in the “maker” crowd.
Generally, an electronic nose is a device comprising several chemical sensors whose results are fed through a pattern-recognition system to identify odors. In traditional devices, the chemical responses alone are used for classification. The engineers behind this invention, however, decided to incorporate non-chemical data to account for the mechanics of the smell process used in nature for a better result. Their experiment proved successful with an approximate 95-98% rate of accuracy in identification compared to about 80-90% accuracy with the chemical sensors alone.
According to the inventors’ published paper, the guiding knowledge that made TruffleBot so useful in odor detection was this: Different smells have different impacts on the air around them, and measuring the variations enables more accurate identification. Did you know that beer odor decreases air pressure and increases temperature? The changes are slight, but TruffleBot can sense them.
This is where the “sniffing” comes in. The device uses air pumped through four obstructed pathways before sending it through chemical and non-chemical sensors. Odors impact the air surrounding them, and the movement of the air through obstacles (“sniffing”) enables the odors’ impact to be more accurately measured.
A chart detailing how TruffleBot processes odors. | Credit: Brown University
So, where exactly would one need an electronic nose? Everywhere. Devices with the chemical sensing ability are being used in agriculture, military, and commercial applications to identify all sorts environmental data. Essentially, electronic noses are useful in any industrial application that has odor involved.
Nasal Marketing
Did you know that it’s possible to trademark a smell in the United States? It’s not easy to accomplish given the somewhat difficult requirements to meet, but a few such things exist. The fact that Play-Doh, a product whose smell is probably one of its most distinct features, was granted a trademark for the scent only this year is testament to the difficulty of obtaining such a mark. However, the fact that some companies have found enough incentive to make sure only their company can give your nose a particular chemical experience tells a lot about that sense’s importance from a marketing perspective.
On one hand, utilizing smell in marketing might seem a little manipulative. After all, creating an air freshener that reminds someone of a beloved, deceased relative on purpose might not seem like a particularly ethical way to target their money. On the other hand (or bigger picture), however, the motivation for marketers to use scent as a tool involves a sort of “chicken or the egg” question.
To summarize part of an article in the journal Sensors on the role scent plays in society and commerce, the aroma of products has a direct impact on their appeal to customers and thus, the success of the product. In fact, a change in a product’s formula that impacts its smell can, and often has had, devastating sales results. In other words, it’s not enough for a company to create a good product; it has to be a good smelling product.
Hacking the Human Nose
It’s probably no surprise that the commercial industry has categorized consumer preferences when it comes to smells. As the first sense fully developed after birth, our noses link us to things like memories, emotions, and chemical communication (think pheromones). Is it any wonder, then, why businesses might be interested in the functionality of the organ that is doing the receiving?
Turns out, there’s an enormous amount of science behind “hacking” a nose. Identifying smells is more than just categorizing chemical mixtures as “floral” or “masculine”. The multitude of chemical combinations available generates such a vast amount of data that scientists have implemented computer neural networks to analyze and classify it. Also, the actual mechanics of smelling something impacts the way the smell is received and processed in the brain. Computers and scientific instruments come in handy there as well. To really get to the core of human response to an aroma, lots of non-human tools are needed, and this is essentially where the TruffleBot fits in the greater realm of “olfactory” science.
I think this is a Sumerian variant for “fruity”. | Credit: AstroJane’s bathroom collection.
More Than Just Your Money
Perhaps one of the most innovative uses found for electronic noses is in disease research. One of the limitations of human smell is its overall weakness. A dog’s sense of smell is around 40 times better than a human’s, and a bear’s is a whopping 2,100 times superior to ours. That said, when researchers learned that certain diseases give off certain odors, the human nose wasn’t exactly the first choice to utilize in sensing them.
An electronic nose makes good use of the simple fact that organic matter releases chemicals into the air. For example, when a plant has been impacted by a fungus, the changes brought on in the plant’s structure release what’s called “volatile organic compounds” (VOCs). These VOCs can be detected by the sensors in an electronic nose and then provide information on the type of disease present without destroying the plants being tested.
Humans have some amazing things to gain from electronic noses, too. Using sensors to process odors from VOCs, things like digestive diseases, kidney diseases, and diabetes, among many others, are all receiving scientific attention for non-invasive diagnosis by these types of devices. With improvements brought on by inventions like TruffleBot, especially combined with its low-cost and resulting accessibility, a future involving remote diagnoses for any number of illnesses and diseases seems more possible every day.
NASA has filed a procurement notice announcing its intent to add six post-certification missions to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. The agency said it would order up to three of those missions immediately upon adding them to the contract, with the remaining three available as needed through the end of the International Space Station’s planned operations in 2030.
The reason for the expansion is straightforward. NASA cited recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable crew transportation capability as the driving factors behind the decision. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not been certified for crewed flights, and a cargo-only Starliner mission was not included on NASA’s most recent mission manifest. With Boeing effectively sidelined for the foreseeable future, SpaceX is the only American company capable of rotating crews to the station.
The history behind this contract tells the fuller story of how SpaceX got here. NASA originally awarded SpaceX its Commercial Crew contract in 2014 for $2.6 billion. In 2022 NASA modified the contract to add five missions covering Crew-10 through Crew-14, worth $1.436 billion, bringing the total contract value at that point to $4.9 billion. The recent May 18 filing by NASA extends that runway further, with Crew-12 currently docked at the station and Crew-13 assigned and targeting a mid-September 2026 launch.
According to a report by SpaceNews, NASA stated in its filing: “It is necessary to award additional PCMs to SpaceX given the recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, NASA’s projections for when an alternative crew transportation system may become available, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable capability for crewed flights to ISS.”
No dollar value for the new six missions has been publicly confirmed yet, but based on the 2022 precedent of roughly $287 million per mission, the new block could represent close to $1.7 billion in additional contract value. With SpaceX simultaneously preparing Starship as NASA’s Artemis lunar lander, filing its S-1 for a June IPO, and now absorbing more ISS crew rotation work, the company’s role as the primary contractor for American human spaceflight is no longer a matter of circumstance. It is NASA policy.
In a notable intersection of Big Tech powerhouses, Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, has partnered with Canadian energy infrastructure giant Enbridge on a significant renewable energy initiative that will rely on battery technology from Elon Musk’s Tesla.
The project, which was announced this week, marks another step in Meta’s aggressive push to power its expanding data center operations with clean energy, dispelling many of the complaints people have about them.
This new development is located near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and will feature a 365-megawatt (MW) solar farm paired with a 200 MW/1,600 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system, also known as BESS. Tesla is providing the batteries for the project, valued at roughly $200 million.
The story was originally reported by Utility Dive.
This Wyoming project represents the first phase of Enbridge and Meta’s joint “Cowboy Project.” Once operational, it will deliver power to Meta’s regional data centers through Cheyenne Light, Fuel, and Power under Wyoming’s Large Power Contract Service tariff.
This tariff, originally developed in collaboration with Microsoft and Black Hills Energy, is designed specifically for large loads like data centers. It ensures that the renewable supply serves hyperscale customers without impacting retail electricity rates for other users.
The battery system will operate under a long-term tolling agreement, providing dispatchable capacity that enhances grid reliability. During periods of high demand, the utility can access the backup generation, addressing one of the key challenges of integrating large-scale renewables with the explosive growth of data center electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence.
This latest collaboration builds on prior joint efforts between Enbridge and Meta in Texas, including the 600 MW Clear Fork Solar, 152 MW Easter Wind, and 300 MW Cone Wind projects. Together with the Wyoming initiative, the companies have now partnered on roughly 1.6 gigawatts (GW) of combined solar, wind, and storage capacity.
The deal highlights the intensifying demand for reliable, low-carbon power from technology giants. Meta has committed to supporting its data center growth with renewable energy, joining peers like Microsoft and Google in seeking large-scale solutions. Enbridge’s Allen Capps described the project as “one of the larger utility-scale battery installations supporting U.S. data center operations and growth.”
The involvement of Tesla’s battery technology adds an intriguing layer, linking two of the world’s most prominent tech leaders—Zuckerberg and Musk—in the clean energy transition.
As data centers continue to drive unprecedented electricity load growth across the United States, projects like this one illustrate how hyperscalers are turning to strategic partnerships with traditional energy players and innovative storage solutions to meet both sustainability goals and reliability needs.
SpaceX has decided to stand down from what was supposed to be the first test launch of Starship’s v3 rocket tonight after a minor issue with a hydraulic pin delayed the flight once more.
The company scrubbed its first test flight of the upgraded Starship v3 on May 21 in the final minutes of the countdown. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk quickly took to social media platform X, explaining that a hydraulic pin on the launch tower’s “chopsticks” arm failed to retract properly.
Musk added that the company would fix the issue this evening. SpaceX will attempt another launch tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. CT, 6:30 p.m. ET, and 3:30 p.m. PT.
The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.
If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow at 5:30 CT. https://t.co/DJAdvDYQpH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2026
The countdown for Starship Flight 12 — featuring the taller and more capable V3 stack with Booster 19 and Ship 39 — had been progressing smoothly until the late-stage issue surfaced. The Mechazilla tower arm, designed to secure the vehicle on the pad and eventually catch returning boosters, could not complete its retraction sequence.
SpaceX teams immediately began troubleshooting the hydraulic system for an overnight repair.
Starship V3 introduces several significant upgrades over earlier versions. These include greater propellant capacity, more powerful Raptor 3 engines, larger grid fins, enhanced heat shielding, and an improved fuel transfer system.
We covered the changes that were announced just days ago by SpaceX:
SpaceX unveils sweeping Starship V3 upgrades ahead of May 19 launch
The changes are intended to increase payload performance, support higher flight rates, and advance the vehicle toward operational missions, including Starlink deployments, NASA Artemis lunar landings, and future crewed Mars flights. The debut flight from Starbase’s new Launch Pad 2 marked an important milestone in scaling up the fully reusable Starship system.
This stand-down highlights the intricate challenges of preparing the world’s most powerful rocket for flight. Despite extensive pre-launch checks, a single component in the ground support equipment can force a scrub.
The incident aligns with Starship’s proven iterative development approach. Previous test flights have encountered both successes and setbacks, each providing critical data that refines hardware and procedures. Some outlets may call some of these flights “failures,” when in reality, they are all opportunities for SpaceX to learn for the next attempt.
With V3, SpaceX aims to reduce ground-system dependencies and increase launch cadence to meet ambitious long-term goals.
NASA just gave SpaceX more crew missions because Boeing can’t certify
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
