An AI can sniff out certain scents, giving us a glimpse of how our nose might work in detecting them. Thomas Cleland at Cornell University, New York, and Nabil Imam at tech firm Intel created an AI based on the mammalian olfactory bulb (MOB), the area of the brain that is responsible for processing odours. The algorithm mimics a part of the MOB that distinguishes between different smells that are usually present as a mixture of compounds in the air. This area of the MOB contains two key types of neuron: mitral cells, which are activated when an odour is present but don't identify it, and granule cells that learn to become specialised and pick out chemicals in the smell. The algorithm mimics these processes, says Imam. Cleland and Imam trained the AI to detect 10 different odours, including those of ammonia and carbon monoxide.