Forget the rats.... bees and 'roaches

["Scott" <becubed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Snipped from some news services.

Boffins ponder bomb-sniffing bees

Bomb sniffing honeybees are being trained in the US as a new tool to fight terror
attacks, it emerged today.

Pentagon scientists have succeeded in making hives ignore flowers and instead
swarm around traces of explosives.

"It appears bees are at least as sensitive or more sensitive to odours than
dogs," Dr Alan Rudolph, who is overseeing the operation, told the New York Times.


Bees have extreme sensitivity to molecular trails and are able to scour every
minute part of an area as they search for food.

One plan being considered is to place a hive of trained bees near important
security checkpoints and use them to guard against possible bomb attack by terrorists.


The swarming detection system could also be used to find truck bombs and land
mines.

Scientists used sugar-water rewards to condition bee colonies to hunt for DNT,
a residue of TNT, in 99% of cases.

After one bee is trained to follow a different scent it transfers the knowledge
to others and within hours the entire hive, and often other nearby hives, have
switched to the new smell.

A special radio transmitter the size of a grain of salt, due to be tested in
the next few weeks, could allow individual bees to be tracked as they follow
parts of bomb ingredients to their source.

Bees could also be used for sniffing out illegal drugs, which are easier to
trace than explosives, the scientists said.

But Pentagon officials told the Times that the idea of bomb-sniffing factors
has a "giggle factor" that makes it hard to sell.

Bees also have limitations, and do not work at night, in storms or in cold weather.


Dr Rudolph said it would take more research before bees could be deployed.

"This is not a capability until we know how predictable it is," he said.



Robo-roach brings Judgement Day closer
By William Eazel [25-09-2001]
 
Japanese boffins create scuttling cyber spies 
Cybernetically enhanced bugs have become a reality meaning that humanity may
have more to worry about than the threat of AI-style robots taking over the
world. 
Japanese boffins at Tokyo University are developing a 'robo-roach' remote controlled
insect that could be used to carry a miniature camera and microphone. 

It would not be to make very small documentaries or make its own cockroach karoake
either; robo-roach could be used in any number of environments ranging from
searching through rubble for disaster victims to acting as a tiny spy in espionage
missions. 

Cockroaches make the ideal agent because they cannot be shot, poisoned or bribed
and would be the only life form likely to survive a nuclear war.

Working under a $5m grant from the Japanese government, scientists have managed
to implant tiny microchip backpacks onto the insects allowing them to be controlled
with a remote handset. 

Only the American cockroach, Perplaneta Americana, can be used in the research
because it is the biggest and hardiest of the species, capable of carrying 20
times its own weight. The microchips are implanted surgically after the cockroaches
have been anaesthetised with carbon dioxide, and their wings and antennae are
removed. 

The pulse-emitting backpack sends signals to the host cockroach through electrodes,
causing it to turn left, right, run forward or back. Apparently there is no
'scuttle under the fridge' function. 

Although the control technology is accurate to a certain degree, sensitive robo-roaches
have been known to leap off the tabletop after receiving a control signal, possibly
in a bid to end it all. 

The development will make industrial espionage difficult to detect as you would
be uncertain whether the infestation in the server room was just an innocent
attack on your lunch or a cunning bid to find out your passwords.

"It will mean that every non-human life form in the server room will have to
be exterminated," said one security expert.