00:00A nurse from Scotland has a real-life scientific superpower.
00:05Joy Milne can smell the presence of Parkinson's disease in other people.
00:10Around 12 years before her husband, Les, found out he had that condition,
00:15she noticed an unusual musky smell coming from him.
00:18Then he started having trouble with routine things like mowing the lawn or playing darts.
00:24Joy even considered him as he became detached and ill-tempered.
00:27But when Les started talking about some shadow off to his side, Joy knew they had to see a neurologist.
00:35When his diagnosis was confirmed, she started attending events with other people who have Parkinson's.
00:41And yes, she could sense the same smell in all of them.
00:46Scientists got interested in Joy's unusual skill in 2012 and decided to test her.
00:50A team at the University of Edinburgh gave her 12 t-shirts,
00:556 from healthy people and 6 from people who had Parkinson's.
01:00Joy's job was to sniff the shirts and figure out which ones belonged to the people with health issues.
01:05And she got them all right.
01:08But then Joy said that one of the shirts from a healthy person smelled like Parkinson's too.
01:12The scientists thought she made a mistake, but 8 months later, that same person was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
01:20That meant Joy could smell it before doctors could even find it.
01:24She was born with something called hereditary hyperosmia,
01:28which means she's able to notice tiny scent changes that no one else can detect.
01:33Mrs. Milne believes she inherited it from her grandmother.
01:37When Joy was little, her grandma wanted her to develop this ability and learn to distinguish the smell of different parts of a rose.
01:45She could tell the scent of the petals from the scent of the leaves from the scent of the pistols and stamens.
01:51At the same time, grandma told Joy to keep this superpower to herself,
01:55so even her husband didn't know anything about it.
01:59He first noticed her nose was ultra-sensitive when they went on a trip to the Scandinavian far north,
02:04and she told him the tundra had a cream odor.
02:09Mrs. Milne said this talent makes her everyday life hard
02:12because any cleaning chemical or perfume is too overwhelming for her.
02:17And even though she can smell Parkinson's in public,
02:20medical ethicists strongly recommend her not to tell strangers they got it.
02:25When scientists got interested in Joy's talent,
02:27they first thought the odor was concentrated not in the armpits,
02:31but it turned out to be the neckline.
02:33They figured out Joy can detect this condition thanks to sebum,
02:38an oily substance produced by our skin.
02:41People with Parkinson's often produce too much of this oil,
02:45a condition called seborrhea.
02:47Scientists discovered that the smell Joy picks up comes from tiny changes in the sebum's makeup,
02:53especially in certain chemicals.
02:55One reason the sebum smells different in people with Parkinson's could be tiny microbes on the skin,
03:01which change the way the oil is made.
03:04Another reason might be that too much oil keeps certain smelly substances trapped on the skin for longer.
03:10Scientists tested the sebum of people with Parkinson's,
03:13both those taking medicine and those who weren't.
03:16They found that their sebum had a special pattern that made them different from people without this condition.
03:23This means that the smell Joy detects could help scientists create a brand new test to diagnose Parkinson's just by checking the skin's oil.
03:32Otherwise, it's pretty tricky to diagnose because it has so many different symptoms,
03:38some that affect motor function and others that don't.
03:41It can sometimes look like other health issues or just signs of aging,
03:45so even the best neurologist can get it wrong up to 30% of the time.
03:50Using Joy's talent could help catch Parkinson's super early
03:54because the changes in sebum happen years before a person knows they have this condition.
03:58If doctors could test for it early, they could help patients much sooner and save many lives.
04:06Plus, the new skin swab test would be way faster, cheaper,
04:10and wouldn't involve any unpleasant procedures, unlike some of the current tests.
04:15The new diagnosing method could also help to see if the meds are working
04:19because the odor is lower when symptoms are under control.
04:23In the future, scientists are hoping to develop new tests
04:26based on the same principle for other series' health issues.
04:31This way, Joy's super-smelling ability could change medicine forever.
04:37Daniel Kish is another human with a real superpower.
04:41Blind from an early age, he's trained himself to see with his ears.
04:45He makes clicking noises with his mouth,
04:48and when those sounds bounce off objects and come back to him,
04:51he listens carefully.
04:52The echoes tell him where things are, just like how bats find their way in the dark.
04:58Daniel worked with scientists from six different universities to study this amazing skill.
05:04He says we know tons about how eyes work,
05:07but what we understand about human echolocation is still very little.
05:12Scientists recorded thousands of clicks from Daniel and two other echolocators.
05:16They discovered that these clicks create a cone of perception
05:20that spreads out in front of the person at about 60 degrees,
05:24like a flashlight made of sound.
05:26The strongest details come from what's directly in front of them.
05:30When someone uses echolocation,
05:32their brain activates the same areas that process vision.
05:36It's not like regular eyesight, but it creates a picture in the mind.
05:39The world appears in a fuzzy 3D way,
05:43where people can tell shape, size, texture, and even how solid something is.
05:49Now that scientists know more about how echolocation works,
05:53they can help blind people learn to use their clicks in the best way possible.
05:57Sometimes, after brain impairment,
05:59people get new talents called acquired savants.
06:02It's very rare, but when it does happen,
06:05the person might suddenly become amazing at math
06:07or be able to draw entire cities from memory,
06:11down to the tiniest details.
06:13One famous case is Orlando Sorrell.
06:16In 1979, he was playing baseball at school.
06:20Suddenly, a baseball hit him hard on the side of his head.
06:23But instead of stopping, he just kept playing.
06:26For a whole year after that,
06:28he got really bad headaches that lasted for hours.
06:31Then, he realized he could instantly figure out tricky calendar questions,
06:36like how many Mondays were in the year 1980.
06:39He could also remember every single thing that had happened to him every day.
06:44You might wish you had the amazing talents of savants,
06:46but their brains work very differently from other people.
06:50They focus on tiny details that most people ignore,
06:53which is why they're so good at certain things like math or drawing.
06:57But this makes it really hard for them to take tests at school.
07:00That's because tests usually ask big, general questions,
07:05and savants think in a much more focused and detailed way.
07:09Some people can see music, taste sounds, or feel colors on their skin.
07:14Their senses are crossed,
07:16as they have a rare condition called synesthesia.
07:20One of its common types is seeing certain colors as days of the week,
07:24or hearing a whoosh sound when watching something go past them.
07:27Elizabeth Salser has a super rare kind of synesthesia,
07:32where her sight, hearing, and taste are all connected.
07:36When she hears music, she doesn't just listen to it,
07:39but sees colorful sound waves floating around her,
07:42and she can taste the music too.
07:45For years, she thought everyone could do this.
07:48She only realized she had rare synesthetic perceptions at the age of 16.
07:53Since then, she's taken part in many studies.
07:55It turned out, she's the only person in the world so far
07:59with an interval-taste combination.
08:02Elizabeth became a professional musician,
08:04and uses her gift to play symphonies in a way no one else can.
08:09Research shows that people with synesthesia
08:11often have better memory and score higher on intelligence tests.
08:16They also often choose creative or art-based careers.
08:19Many music artists have sound color synesthesia,
08:22and Billy Joel is one of them.
08:25That's it for today.
08:27So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
08:29then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
08:32Or if you want more, just click on these videos
08:34and stay on the bright side!
08:35Thank you very much!
08:41Here I look here!
08:42Just kidding!
08:43Let's turn it out!
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