I’m currently doing my Microbiology rotation at a large reference lab at the urine bench and will be moving to each station with a few days each. On the urine bench there are common bacterial strains we get all the time and the tech I work with smells everything and I’m learning the smells in my own way as well. For him some stink more while it doesn’t bother me. So as much as we try to describe the smell our descriptions and way we actually precieve it will be different. But I have a few to share and will slowly add to my scent bank haha! But with each plate. The same bacteria strain can vary to also how much the plate of incubated and also I read recently that bacteria as a sort of olfactory response when they “smell” a compond nearby, not in the same plate, and they “change”
E. coli: to me smells like a certain kind of moth balls I smell on people and in their houses
Viridans strep: I also agree it smells like movie theater popcorn butter
P. aeruginosa: I also agree is a weird blend of grape ish with tortilla
There are more but I cannot remember off the top of my head they are in my notes in my lab coat which I don’t have access to. But one urine culture smelled like incense to me. C. diff has spores so I’m a bit scared to smell that one ha!
It’s interesting how different microbes create different smells. I wonder if the substrates that they feed on alter their odors. In nature bacteria tend to pal around with yeasts. Such as in/on the human body. I wonder if that has any effect on the odors they create. Even in sour dough breads. The wild yeasts that we capture tend to pal around with different strains of lactobacillus depending on the region of the country (e.g. Lactobacillus Sanfranciscenis).
I think we have the makings of a school for bacteria connoisseurs! :rolleyes:
Its possible, all other conditions being the same.
Fair enough that in the lab someone can tell between two known , or most likely found, bacteria from the smell, but out in the wild, its not going to work very well at all.
eg you want to be diagnosed by the doctors nose ?
The same smell that might come from a bacteria might come from a genetic defect, an illness. eg a particularly bad breath can come from a genetic abnormally low ability to tolerate copper in diet. Also the phenylketonurics get that ? There’s a few more food and health related breath smells.
But I figure they could be easily the same smells bacteria make.
There’s only so many smells and but so many bacteria !
Same with urine colour. There’s only shades of yellow and orange, and so many diseases and variables such as food and drink intake, hydration levels, and co-existing abnormalities.