Joy Milne has an unusual gift. Years before her husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Milne started to notice a strange “musky” smell around him. When they later attended a support group for the disease, she realized that the odor was unique to people with Parkinson’s – and the more advanced the disease, the more pronounced the scent.

Milne, a former nurse, attracted widespread press coverage when she proved her “superpower” in a series of controlled lab tests, where she correctly identified clothing worn by Parkinson’s patients versus controls. Her only misstep was to identify one “control” as having Parkinson’s – initially recorded as a false positive, the subject went on to be diagnosed with the disease soon afterwards. Now, Milne is working with scientists who hope to develop a much-needed early test for Parkinson’s disease.