The strange scent-detection device demonstrated by the sales team from Cyrano Sciences looked a little like a candy-colored cell phone. But to the nurses at the University of California, Los Angeles Dental School, it seemed as beautiful as a mouthful of perfectly capped teeth.

A program at the Dental School was testing remedies for oral malodor-in other words, chronic bad breath-and the nurses were taking turns monitoring patients' progress. The methodology was simple: Nurse puts nose to patient's mouth, then everyone breathes deeply. Professionalism aside, no one involved walked away savoring the experience.