Smelling Parkinson's?

Joy Milne from Scotland has a very unusual sense of smell. She has had it since she was a child. When Milne closes her eyes, she smells in color. If she puts a flower up to her nose, a "kaleidoscope," as she puts it, begins spinning in her head. The medical term for this overlapping of sensory perception is synesthesia, and the color of the scent rarely has anything to do with the color of the object in question. Coffee smells "swirly gray" to her, while the smell of the North Sea is emerald green.

For several years, she, a former nurse, has worked with a number of scientists because she is also able to smell diseases. People with Alzheimer's smell to her like rye bread, diabetes like nail polish, cancer like mushrooms and tuberculosis like damp cardboard. She has worked most closely with those studying Parkinson's disease, the cause of her husband's death. These scientists are looking for a way to detect the disease before its clear symptoms becomes noticeable. She felt that when her husband was close he smelled differently from most people; he smelled like musk.