Are there things that the new TSA scanners can detect that a trained dog cannot? Please provide cites if you have them.
Somehow I doubt that a plastic knife smells any different than a plastic spoon or anything else made of the same type of plastic.
More generally, can a dog even smell plastic? Does plastic smell?
Bit of a false dichotomy, as I’m pretty sure such a utensil could easily be concealed so that the scanner doesn’t reveal it either.
Plastic can smell strongly enough that even a human can scent it, especially if it’s new or warmed. If we can smell it at all it seems a safe bet that dogs can.
Not to mention that they hand out plastic knives to every passenger on a lot of flights.
Didn’t the 9/11 hijackers use box cutters and plastic knives? I thought the new scanners could see anything that want skin.
These plastic knives look like they can do some damage:
Dogs have a remarkably good sense of smell. A saw a recent Mythbusters episode where they tried their best to foil trained scent dogs. The Mythbusters failed every time. The dogs never failed to find what they were looking for.
Thing is dogs are trained to respond to a very narrow set of items. Drugs or certain explosives or decaying bodies and so on.
So, could a dog smell a plastic utensil? Probably but then it isn’t trained to react to plastic explosives.
Dogs have been used to find cell phones in prisons which I’ll assume has something to do with the plastic content. Admitted, it could be something to do with the battery construction or several other components, but plastic is as reasonable guess.
Surprisingly enough, dogs can be trained to smell food.
eta: although, saying that they defend us from alien species sounds more impressive
and according to the link, they can also smell cancer, which I don’t think there are rules against bringing onto a plane…
[off topic]