Environment

Rats!

by Barbara McPherson | October 5, 2008 at 10:48 am

207 views | 22 Recommendations | 6 comments

Many of us have an aversion to rats while they are revered in some cultures. Now even those who are sworn enemy of these rodents have to modify our stance. The African pouched rat is currently being trained to sniff out land mines and to do it without blowing itself up.

The African pouched rat is large for a rat, but small compared to a dog so that when it steps on a mine, it is too light to trigger an explosion. The detection depends on explosive residue leaking into the atmosphere. Another advantage of using trained rats as opposed to dogs is that the rats come at a much cheaper price.

The company that is training the bomb sniffing rats is also training rats to detect diseases by sniffing saliva samples. TB is the disease being targetted.

Dogs have long been used to sniff out land mines in war-torn regions. But now they may have some welcome competition: rats and bees.

A Belgian company has trained African giant pouch rats (Cricetomys gambianus) to locate buried bombs, while researchers at the University of Montana are using honeybees to screen large areas for unexploded ordinance.

The insects had a 98 percent success rate in tests performed last year. Researchers said the location of the residue can be mapped to provide a picture of the extent, location, and density of bomb-contaminated areas.

The bees are conditioned to associate explosive residue with food sources.

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World_Groove

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:16 on October 5th, 2008

Very Cool !

jordan

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:18 on October 5th, 2008

Funny how we hate rats, but, when faced with a minefield, they're our best friends...

Terri Potratz

at 13:33 on October 5th, 2008

Great story Barbara!

LotusFlower wrote a similar one a few weeks ago as well: Rats and a cat bodyguard recruited to tackle Colombia's land mines

Using bees is pretty neat too.

Barbara McPherson

at 09:35 on October 6th, 2008

Thanks for the heads up and link. I just read it. Funny how there seems to be a convergence in the scientific community. Thank goodness someone is thinking outside the box.