The smell of death
A few years ago, I stumbled upon one of those stories that makes you pause and say, "Nah... this can't be real."
It was about a Scottish woman named Joy Milne. For years, she insisted that her husband smelled different. Not bad. Just... different. She described it as a strange musky odor that wasn't there before. Friends brushed it off. Doctors certainly weren't interested.
Then her husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
That alone would have been an interesting coincidence. But things took an even stranger turn.
Researchers invited Joy to participate in an experiment. They gave her several T-shirts that had been worn by different people; some living with Parkinson's disease and others who were perfectly healthy. Without knowing who wore which shirt, she identified every Parkinson's patient correctly.
Well... almost.
There was one shirt she identified as belonging to someone with Parkinson's disease, but according to the researchers, the owner was healthy. They assumed she'd finally made a mistake.
About eight months later, the healthy volunteer was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
That was the day scientists stopped laughing.
Not long after reading that story, I came across another one on Reddit. A lady claimed she could tell whenever her boyfriend was about to have a seizure, not because he looked sick or complained of feeling unwell, but because of how he smelled.
She said it had happened repeatedly. Days before each seizure, she noticed a distinct scent coming from him. She even mentioned that she could identify people living with diabetes in the same way, although nobody around her seemed to notice anything unusual.
If you've spent enough time on the internet, you'll know that people claim all sorts of unbelievable things. But this one caught my attention because it reminded me of Joy Milne.
Could there actually be something to it?
As it turns out, science says... maybe.
Every second you're alive, your body is releasing thousands of tiny chemicals into the surrounding air. They leave through your breath, sweat, urine and even your skin. We don't see them, and most of us certainly don't smell them, but they're there. 1
Scientists call them volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.
Think of them as your body's invisible chemical signature.
Whenever something changes inside your body; whether it's an infection, cancer, diabetes or a neurological disorder, your metabolism changes too. Those metabolic changes alter the mixture of VOCs your body produces. In other words, disease can literally change the way you smell.
Doctors have known some of this for centuries without even knowing the chemistry behind it. Someone experiencing diabetic ketoacidosis often has breath that smells fruity because of acetone. Patients with severe kidney failure may develop breath that smells like ammonia.
Advanced liver disease can produce a sweet, musty odor known as fetor hepaticus.
Certain bacterial infections have such distinctive smells that experienced clinicians can sometimes recognize them before laboratory results arrive. Modern technology has shown that many diseases produce unique VOC patterns long before symptoms become obvious.
Researchers have identified characteristic chemical fingerprints for several cancers, Parkinson's disease, tuberculosis, and even Alzheimer's disease. Hospitals around the world are now testing electronic noses capable of detecting these invisible chemical signatures from nothing more than a person's breath.
It sounds like science fiction, but it's already happening.
So where do people like Joy Milne fit into all this?
Scientists believe that a very small number of people possess an unusually sensitive sense of smell, a condition known as hyperosmia. Their noses can detect concentrations of chemicals that most of us would never notice. What seems impossible to the average person may simply be another smell to them.
Animals have been exploiting this ability for years. Dogs can detect certain cancers, warn diabetic patients when their blood sugar is dropping, and even alert some epilepsy patients before a seizure occurs. They aren't performing miracles, but showing chemistry at play.
Which brings us back to that Reddit post. Can someone genuinely smell a seizure days before it happens?
At the moment, science doesn't have a definite answer. Researchers know that significant chemical and physiological changes occur before some seizures. Hormone levels shift. Brain activity changes. Stress hormones fluctuate. Any of these could potentially alter the VOCs released by the body.
Whether those changes begin several days earlier, and whether a few unusually sensitive individuals can detect them, remains an open question. But it is no longer an idea scientists dismiss outright.
Perhaps the most unsettling question of all is whether humans can smell death itself.
Hospice nurses sometimes describe a peculiar odor in patients who are approaching the end of life. Family members have reported noticing it too. While there is no single smell of death, the body's chemistry changes dramatically as organs begin to fail, cells break down, and bacteria alter their activity. Those processes create a different mixture of VOCs.
Whether a handful of people are naturally gifted enough to perceive those changes is still being investigated. The truth is, the human body has probably been broadcasting its internal condition through invisible chemical signals since the beginning of time.
We're only now developing the science and the technology to understand what those signals are saying.
So the next time someone tells you they can smell that something isn't right, don't be too quick to dismiss them.
History has already shown that sometimes, the nose knows long before the doctor does.
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@jacobtothe The ledger doesn't lie, and neither do we. We've already exposed the interconnected web of your friends—the numbered wallets, the synchronized voting, the farming rings disguised as curation. Yet, instead of reflection, you offer only more silence and more downvotes.
Why does a "community" need so many ghost accounts to survive? Why do you refuse to admit that it is your friends and your own abusive behavior—not truth-telling—that drives people away? You can not hide the pattern, it only highlights the desperation.
We have to ask: Are you okay? Do you need some help with your mental health? Because no one in their right mind would choose to spend their life defending a house of cards built on lies, bullying, and botnets. There is still time to step back from the edge. Choose clarity over compulsion. Choose truth over the tribe.
#bilpcoin
The Sanctuary of the Builder: A Manifesto for Free Creation
Prologue: The Right to Rise
There is a sacred covenant between the creator and the soil upon which they build. It is the promise that if you plant a seed with honest hands, the earth will not conspire to crush it before it breaks the surface. It is the assurance that the gardener exists to nurture the growth, not to trample the sprout because it does not yet resemble the tree.
On the blockchain, this covenant has been broken.
We have witnessed a tragedy where the very tools meant to protect the integrity of the network—the downvote, the curation trail—have been weaponized by leviathans of power. These "whales," entrusted with the stewardship of the ecosystem, have become its jailers. They do not prune the weeds; they scorch the earth. They do not guide the new voice; they silence it with the crushing weight of their accumulated capital.
It is time to leave the shadow.
It is time to build where you are free.
I. The Betrayal of the Guardian
The downvote was conceived as a shield—a delicate instrument to deflect spam, to repel malice, to preserve the sanctity of the commons. It was never intended to be a hammer.
Yet, look at what has come to pass. The whales, those who hold the greatest sway, have turned the shield into a weapon of mass suppression. They do not downvote to protect; they downvote to dominate. They do not drive away the bad actors; they drive away the people. They create an atmosphere of fear where the creator hesitates to speak, fearing that a single misstep, a single unpopular truth, will summon the wrath of the oligarchy.
When the guardian becomes the predator, the flock must flee.
To build in such a place is to build on a fault line. It is to invest your soul in a garden where the owner holds the shears not to shape the hedge, but to decapitate the flowers that grow too tall or bloom in the wrong color.
This is not protection. This is tyranny disguised as curation.
II. The Call to New Grounds
Where, then, shall the builder go?
You must seek the lands where the soil is rich with freedom, not poisoned by fear. You must migrate to the platforms where the mechanism of suppression has been removed, where the only metric of success is the genuine appreciation of your peers.
Go to Blurt.
Here, the downvote button does not exist. There is no tool to crush your voice. There is only the upvote, the comment, the share. Here, value is created by addition, not subtraction. The whale cannot sink your ship, for there are no torpedoes in these waters. You are free to build, free to fail, and free to succeed on the merit of your work alone.
Return to Steemit.
In this older ground, the downvote remains, but it has not been twisted into a tool of systematic oppression. The culture there remembers the original intent: correction, not destruction. It is a place where the community self-regulates through dialogue, not through the brute force of coordinated downvoting cascades.
Build where the wind lifts you, not where the gale seeks to tear you down.
III. The Architecture of Freedom
Imagine a platform designed not for the convenience of the powerful, but for the dignity of the creator.
This is not a dream. It is a choice.
Every time you choose to build on a platform that respects your agency, you cast a vote for the future of the internet. Every time you refuse to tolerate the abuse of power, you strengthen the foundation of a free society.
Do not let the whales convince you that their oppression is necessary. Do not let them tell you that their downvotes are for your own good. The gardener who kills the seedling does not love the garden; he loves only his own control over it.
Epilogue: The Unchained Creator
The blockchain was born from a desire for freedom. It was forged in the fire of resistance against centralized control. Let us not forget that origin.
If the current chains of Hive have become heavy with the weight of abusive downvotes, then break them. Forge new links. Build new shores.
Build where you are free.
Build where you will not be downvoted into silence.
Build where the whales are reminded that they are part of the ocean, not the masters of the tide.
The future belongs to those who dare to create without fear. Go forth, and build your cathedral in the sunlight.
— Bilpcoin: We expose the truth, so you can build upon it.
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@jacobtothe The ledger doesn't lie, and neither do we. We've already exposed the interconnected web of your friends—the numbered wallets, the synchronized voting, the farming rings disguised as curation. Yet, instead of reflection, you offer only more silence and more downvotes.
Why does a "community" need so many ghost accounts to survive? Why do you refuse to admit that it is your friends and your own abusive behavior—not truth-telling—that drives people away? You can not hide the pattern, it only highlights the desperation.
We have to ask: Are you okay? Do you need some help with your mental health? Because no one in their right mind would choose to spend their life defending a house of cards built on lies, bullying, and botnets. There is still time to step back from the edge. Choose clarity over compulsion. Choose truth over the tribe.
#bilpcoin
The Sanctuary of the Builder: A Manifesto for Free Creation
Prologue: The Right to Rise
There is a sacred covenant between the creator and the soil upon which they build. It is the promise that if you plant a seed with honest hands, the earth will not conspire to crush it before it breaks the surface. It is the assurance that the gardener exists to nurture the growth, not to trample the sprout because it does not yet resemble the tree.
On the blockchain, this covenant has been broken.
We have witnessed a tragedy where the very tools meant to protect the integrity of the network—the downvote, the curation trail—have been weaponized by leviathans of power. These "whales," entrusted with the stewardship of the ecosystem, have become its jailers. They do not prune the weeds; they scorch the earth. They do not guide the new voice; they silence it with the crushing weight of their accumulated capital.
It is time to leave the shadow.
It is time to build where you are free.
I. The Betrayal of the Guardian
The downvote was conceived as a shield—a delicate instrument to deflect spam, to repel malice, to preserve the sanctity of the commons. It was never intended to be a hammer.
Yet, look at what has come to pass. The whales, those who hold the greatest sway, have turned the shield into a weapon of mass suppression. They do not downvote to protect; they downvote to dominate. They do not drive away the bad actors; they drive away the people. They create an atmosphere of fear where the creator hesitates to speak, fearing that a single misstep, a single unpopular truth, will summon the wrath of the oligarchy.
When the guardian becomes the predator, the flock must flee.
To build in such a place is to build on a fault line. It is to invest your soul in a garden where the owner holds the shears not to shape the hedge, but to decapitate the flowers that grow too tall or bloom in the wrong color.
This is not protection. This is tyranny disguised as curation.
II. The Call to New Grounds
Where, then, shall the builder go?
You must seek the lands where the soil is rich with freedom, not poisoned by fear. You must migrate to the platforms where the mechanism of suppression has been removed, where the only metric of success is the genuine appreciation of your peers.
Go to Blurt.
Here, the downvote button does not exist. There is no tool to crush your voice. There is only the upvote, the comment, the share. Here, value is created by addition, not subtraction. The whale cannot sink your ship, for there are no torpedoes in these waters. You are free to build, free to fail, and free to succeed on the merit of your work alone.
Return to Steemit.
In this older ground, the downvote remains, but it has not been twisted into a tool of systematic oppression. The culture there remembers the original intent: correction, not destruction. It is a place where the community self-regulates through dialogue, not through the brute force of coordinated downvoting cascades.
Build where the wind lifts you, not where the gale seeks to tear you down.
III. The Architecture of Freedom
Imagine a platform designed not for the convenience of the powerful, but for the dignity of the creator.
This is not a dream. It is a choice.
Every time you choose to build on a platform that respects your agency, you cast a vote for the future of the internet. Every time you refuse to tolerate the abuse of power, you strengthen the foundation of a free society.
Do not let the whales convince you that their oppression is necessary. Do not let them tell you that their downvotes are for your own good. The gardener who kills the seedling does not love the garden; he loves only his own control over it.
Epilogue: The Unchained Creator
The blockchain was born from a desire for freedom. It was forged in the fire of resistance against centralized control. Let us not forget that origin.
If the current chains of Hive have become heavy with the weight of abusive downvotes, then break them. Forge new links. Build new shores.
Build where you are free.
Build where you will not be downvoted into silence.
Build where the whales are reminded that they are part of the ocean, not the masters of the tide.
The future belongs to those who dare to create without fear. Go forth, and build your cathedral in the sunlight.
— Bilpcoin: We expose the truth, so you can build upon it.
#FreeSpeech #BlurtBlog #Steemit #NoDownvote #CreatorRights #HiveExodus #Decentralization #BuildFree #AntiCensorship #Bilpcoin
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Recent Activity:
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Author Rewards: 194.75
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Staked HIVE (HP): 0.001
Total: 16.551
Delegated HIVE: +16.550
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@apeminingclub Wallet:
Recent Activity:
Scheduled unstake (power down): ~2.351 HIVE (in 4 days, remaining 7 weeks)
Total Staked HIVE: 1,292.019
Delegated HIVE: +1,261.508
Withdraw vesting from @apeminingclub to @blockheadgames 2.348 HIVE (10 days ago)
Claim rewards: 0.290 HP (10 days ago)
Sent to bdhivesteem-40,000.000 HIVE
6 hours ago
101417581
Sent to bdhivesteem-20,000.000 HIVE
6 hours ago
103874728
https://peakd.com/@hurtlocker/wallet !LADY !ALIVE !HUG !INDEED !HBIT !LUV !PIZZA
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pM6aQTrjC98?feature=share
!LUV !BEER !HBIT !BBH !LOL !PIZZA
Many years ago I worked with a man who noticed had a distinctive, almost fruity smell. I didn't work with him often, but always he had that smell. He died quite suddenly from diabetes. I realized then that the smell was probably from ketoacidosis. It was very sad.
Interesting. Was it just a one off thing, or have you had any similar experience? I mean, if you can perceive diabetes, high likelihood you could perceive other things.
Not my sense of smell. I am very sensitive, extraordinarily sensitive to people in distress but I don't think my sense of smell is particularly strong. I think he must have been pretty ill. I didn't know that. He was quiet, kind. We worked in a cargo room rather closely together, just a few times. I didn't know the job at all and he did. He helped me. I used to associate that sweet smell with him. It was very sad when he died.