China’s “professional noses” sniff out harmful gases

An environmental monitoring station in the south China city of Panyu is reported to be recruiting people to use their noses to sniff out polluting gases and test air quality.
English
The team of 11 "professional noses" in the Pearl River delta have been trained by air pollution experts, China Daily quoted a senior official at the station as saying on Wednesday.
"Now we can differentiate between hundreds of smells that may make people ill, before making an assessment on their density," vice-director Liu Jingcai was reported as saying.
"The work is quite unpleasant. We have to stay in a lab smelling those awful gases repeatedly," he added.