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Cockroaches Daubed With Yeast As WMD Sensors?
Our Man In Redmond writes "OK, yeah, it sounds weird, but it just might work. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have come up with the idea of attaching genetically-modified yeast to the back of a cockroach - or a cockroach-sized robot - and using the yeast to detect chemical or biological agents. The story's in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. They point out some other possible nifty uses for the yeast-based technology, like detecting diseases by having a patient blow on a piece of paper 'printed' with the yeast."
Can these magical roaches be reprogrammed to seek out and destroy the GNAA headquarters? FRIST PS0t!
Something distinct that people will remember better than my name
They train young men to drop fire on people but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplane because its obsene.
Fear not, terrorists, I've got your solution! Just make your WMD in really, really, really bright laboratories! Problem solved!
... what? Crap, I'm sorry ... gotta go ... some nice men in suits are here and need to talk about some "Patriot Act" or something ... I'll see you in about 20, I guess ...
*mumble mumble*
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
" like detecting diseases by having a patient blow on a piece of paper 'printed' with the yeast."
now THAT's a blowjob
my blog
wtf
The yeast and the cockroach -- a spy tale
One infiltrates, the other collects data
By SUE VORENBERG
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Meet the future of biological and chemical espionage: yeast and cockroaches.
Odd as the combination sounds, it could be the building block of a new, inexpensive spy device -- one that could sneak into a building and sense chemicals or biological agents, said Jeff Brinker, a Sandia National Laboratories scientist and professor at the University of New Mexico.
"Cockroaches are robust -- they can go into environments that humans can't withstand," Brinker said. "You could attach a sensing device onto the back of a cockroach and send it into a place where you suspect they're making chemical weapons.
"If you can go in covertly, you can collect evidence without anyone getting spooked."
Who needs the CIA when you've got cockroaches? As for the sensing device, Brinker said, that would be made of yeast.
"Yeast functions like a canary in a coal mine," said Helen Baca, a doctoral student working with Brinker. "If yeast cells are exposed to dangerous chemicals, they change and die. You can actually genetically modify yeast cells so when something specific happens to them, they change color."
Brinker and Baca are creating genetically modified yeast cells that can stay alive for days attached to the back of a cockroach -- or a cockroach-sized robot.
"Inside each yeast cell is a marker that turns green if it is exposed to a particular chemical," Brinker said. "They have optical radar where you can shoot a beam at the cockroach, and if a chemical triggered any of the yeast cells, it would be able to see the green fluorescent marker."
Keeping the yeast sensors alive isn't all that easy. The cells need a constant supply of water and nutrients, which is hard to supply on the back of a cockroach.
So the scientists decided to encase the cells in Sol-Gel, an insulation material that Brinker has modified and improved since he came to Sandia Labs in 1979.
"The Sol-Gel creates an environment like a tiny reservoir that can store an influx of nutrients," he said. "It maintains the hydrated environment, and to our surprise we found the yeast actually seems to develop a symbiotic relationship with the host material."
In other words, the yeast appears to eat a portion of the Sol-Gel, and the Sol-Gel keeps the yeast alive.
"We've had it survive for three days that way," Baca said. "It looks like there's the potential for them to last a lot longer than that."
And she means longer as in hundreds of years. That's because yeast becomes dormant when it is deprived of water and nutrients.
While it couldn't be used as a sensor in its dormant state, a quick drop of nutrients could suddenly bring the yeast back to life for its next mission, Brinker said.
"These yeast sensors can be applied to things by all kinds of interesting techniques," he said. "We've created an ink jet cartridge for a printer that can print out arrays of yeast in Sol-Gel droplets."
A printed page of yeast sensors could be taped or glued to the back of a cockroach or robot. It might even be used in unusual medical devices.
Say the yeast is engineered to detect human disease. Then a doctor could print up a yeast card, have a patient breathe on it and determine what illness the person has, Brinker said.
I'm not Seth.
Why work on such esoteric stuff when we have tons of people sitting idle?
They can be our "smart detectors".
You just a fucking karma whore. Its not even slashdotted. I would bet it won't be.
Eatin' a big ass sandwich and shit?
Until they find out that the GM yeasts
unleash a plague far worse than what
they were trying to avoid.
now we'll have groups complaining about roach cruelty...
Die First, Then Quit
1) Cockroaches fail to find evidence of WMDs.
2) Government asserts non-cooperation on part of regime under inspection with cockroaches conducting said inspections.
3) ???
4) Democracy!
Yeah, I know one "nifty" technology based on yeast: it's called "beer" and has been around for thousands of years. Hoooray for yeast! ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I suggest cockroach + robot = "cockrobot"
As an added benefit: "I, for one, welcome our new cockrobot overlords" has a nice ring to it.
WTF is a Post-Intelligencer anyway?
Gee GW sounds like he's getting pretty desparate now!
The yeast and the cockroach -- a spy tale
One infiltrates, the other collects data
By SUE VORENBERG
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Meet the future of biological and chemical espionage: yeast and cockroaches.
Odd as the combination sounds, it could be the building block of a new, inexpensive spy device -- one that could sneak into a building and sense chemicals or biological agents, said Jeff Brinker, a Sandia National Laboratories scientist and professor at the University of New Mexico.
"Cockroaches are robust -- they can go into environments that humans can't withstand," Brinker said. "You could attach a sensing device onto the back of a cockroach and send it into a place where you suspect they're making chemical weapons.
"If you can go in covertly, you can collect evidence without anyone getting spooked."
Who needs the CIA when you've got cockroaches? As for the sensing device, Brinker said, that would be made of yeast.
"Yeast functions like a canary in a coal mine," said Helen Baca, a doctoral student working with Brinker. "If yeast cells are exposed to dangerous chemicals, they change and die. You can actually genetically modify yeast cells so when something specific happens to them, they change color."
Brinker and Baca are creating genetically modified yeast cells that can stay alive for days attached to the back of a cockroach -- or a cockroach-sized robot.
"Inside each yeast cell is a marker that turns green if it is exposed to a particular chemical," Brinker said. "They have optical radar where you can shoot a beam at the cockroach, and if a chemical triggered any of the yeast cells, it would be able to see the green fluorescent marker."
Keeping the yeast sensors alive isn't all that easy. The cells need a constant supply of water and nutrients, which is hard to supply on the back of a cockroach.
So the scientists decided to encase the cells in Sol-Gel, an insulation material that Brinker has modified and improved since he came to Sandia Labs in 1979.
"The Sol-Gel creates an environment like a tiny reservoir that can store an influx of nutrients," he said. "It maintains the hydrated environment, and to our surprise we found the yeast actually seems to develop a symbiotic relationship with the host material."
In other words, the yeast appears to eat a portion of the Sol-Gel, and the Sol-Gel keeps the yeast alive.
"We've had it survive for three days that way," Baca said. "It looks like there's the potential for them to last a lot longer than that."
And she means longer as in hundreds of years. That's because yeast becomes dormant when it is deprived of water and nutrients.
While it couldn't be used as a sensor in its dormant state, a quick drop of nutrients could suddenly bring the yeast back to life for its next mission, Brinker said.
"These yeast sensors can be applied to things by all kinds of interesting techniques," he said. "We've created an ink jet cartridge for a printer that can print out arrays of yeast in Sol-Gel droplets."
A printed page of yeast sensors could be taped or glued to the back of a cockroach or robot. It might even be used in unusual medical devices.
Say the yeast is engineered to detect human disease. Then a doctor could print up a yeast card, have a patient breathe on it and determine what illness the person has, Brinker said.
Has become the new "Star Wars" angle for research. Looking for new Funding ? Unsure that it will get approved ? Well see how it could possibly be applied to WMD, it doesn't have to be sensible, it just has to be enough to get the funding. After all there are people of billions of dollars out there who can't find WMD, so your research not doing it either won't change anything.
This is for the diagnosis of illnesses, pure and simple. And at 2am in a bar when the funding review was at 10am the researchers had an idea.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Young bachelor to FBI agent: "That's not a biological weapons lab, man; that's my kitchen!
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Who is Christine Watkins? Not trying to be OT but when you have a sig like that with no link, I have to ask. Thanks in advance.
...by the time the monkey assigned to observe the changes in the cockroaches actually observes a change of interest, it's already too late.
We're not going to solve the problem of terrorism by introducing new technology to the equation. It's the new technology that got us into this mess in the first place.
No, what solves the problem is acknowledging all the fucked up things we've done to other people in other nations/cultures that causes them to hate us so.
Understanding that we cause 99% of the shit that comes our way is the very best anti-terrorism measure we can take.
Of course, for those who wield all the power in this country, that simply won't do. They depend on our ability to inflict death and misery upon other nations so as to more easily extract their natural resources.
They understand that there are going to be repercussions by doing this, but to their mind that doesn't mean it's wrong in any way, only that they should take care to be long gone before those repercussions become real.
The horrible, brutal truth of the matter is that our very best course out of all of this is to not only cease and desist from fucking over other people, but to understand as well that because we've spent so many years fucking over all these other people in all these other nations that we're due all kinds of grief in the years to come no matter what we due today.
In other words, we could as a nation act as angels and still get shit thrown our way, simply because the seeds were planted by our predecessors long ago.
The sobering reality is this: if we are really interested in a peaceful future, we have to be ready to take a major kick to the balls, and then smile like nothing happened.
Or in other words, accept the fact that Manhattan is going to get nuked. Accept that the reason it got nuked was because of atrocities we've committed upon other people long ago. Accept that our retaliating for Manhatten being made to glow green will only cause DC, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco to glow green as well.
But of course, this will never happen. Our political system does not support rational leadership. Look at the insane reaction to 9/11. Now multiple that by a google (no, not the search engine) to understand what will happen when finally America is made to account for it's evil past.
We're fucked. We are totally fucked.
The cockroaches aren't going to save us. They are here to survive us.
Have a nice day.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
We are now using the cockroaches found at den*y's to search for WMD!
ingenius!
I would like to read about the article, not mindless offtopic crap. Please mod this entire thread (except maybe the OP) down. Thanks.
So, I guess I can rest assured that the guy down the road baking baguettes isn't a terrorist then? ;)
Gr@ve_Rose
!ekoj on si aixelsyD
Weapons of mass destruction. Biological outbreaks of plague. Medical sensors. Bah.
There is one purpose for which yeast, and yeast research, should be put. Beer. Better beer. Beer that tastes great, but is less filling. Beer that I can drink until snookered, then wake up from the next day, hangover free.
Beer.
Any questions?
OK this is cool You send the coachroaches out into an area where there is WMD. How do you check the yeast? Have the coachroacges on a really long leash? :)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
1) Get a cockroach
2) Get some yeast
3) ???
4) WMDs!
Patient blows.
Doctor: "Ehmmm. You have herpes."
Patient: "What? One blow, and you say I have herpes?"
Haven't they learn from Hollywood movies? In the most critical moment, a bad guy will squash the spy-roach under his boot and the good guys will have to find another way to get what they want.
Worse yet, can you imagine letting all these cockroaches loose, to try to find WMDs, and then when none are found, release more. None found? Release more. THEN you have to nuke the place to get rid of all the roaches...
But when the roaches won't die from the radiation? What then?
Does this make sense to anyone here? Anyone?
And when you get them back you can use them to make Vegemite
Boy, this is starting to smell of desperation.
Come on Dubya, face it.
There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
So, the USA not just destroys Iraqi infrastructure to stone age, they now want to flood the ruins with yeast-infected cockroaches?
No limits to human cruelty..
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
So if they are still alive when all humans are gone, we'll know it was a really, really good weapon. What? Oh...
Money for nothing, pix for free
.. welcome our new bread-making anthrax-detecting apocalypse-surviving insect overlords.
Yeah right, if that succeeds, we might need WMD to eliminate cockroaches in future.
Finally Daryl McBride does something good for the community. I wish him luck on his WMD search.
Finally, a little yeast on the back of every SCO bigwig, folks of the MPAA, RIAA, MS Employees, and most government officials...and they're useful again!
Who said we couldn't find good uses for vermin?
I really don't get that. If it's far enough in the open for a cockroach to find, couldn't you just look around for all the human corpses?
and with the correct software they will be able to provide "proof" that saddam actually had WMD's.
Better than letting those robots search for weapons they should be used to help rescue workers in saving lifes. I think the small form factor would make it easy to let them search for survivors under collapsed buildings after earth quakes or - as we saw in Russia lately - help examine tunnels or mine shafts for survivors after accidents. Why does research always drift in the military direction? *sigh*
".Sig Stealer" was here
Yeah, I got a question.
What about bread?
Um, to go with the beer, of course.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The discussion on the yeast in the story seems like the easy part (IANABC-I am not a Biologist-Chemist), but making a cockroach that has enough power, is controllable (either remotely or through AI), and is actually useful would be the hard part.
The civilized world has more to fear from the development of technology like this than the terrorists do. A cockroach is less of a threat to a terrorist hiding in a cave (they can find a new cave or have a pet snake to eat the cockroaches), verses nations that have nuclear powerplants, mass transit systems, and airplanes that could fall victim to a terrorist controlled cockroach-bots that likes to munch on wires/circuit boards and fuel lines.
Development of miniature cockroach robots will initially be by First World nations, but the technology will proliferate much easier than nuclear capability ever did. It would be easier to hide a cockroach-bot program than a nuclear program, and a cockroach-bot will be more useful.
mmm... cockroaches daubed with yeast...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Won't the bad guys just buy a few cans of pyrethrin lacquer (the stuff you spray around ant holes). "I'm sorry, Mrs. Roach, but your husband is missing presumed dead. He crawled for what he believed in."
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
...it will be easy to spot the terrorist hiding WMD since they'll have huge collection of frogs, reptiles, birds and sharks with frickin' "laser" beams attached to their heads protecting their lair of WMD.
Directions:
1. Get access to your server.
2. Blow yeast on it.
3. ???
4. If yeast turns green, there's a patch coming out soon. If it turns red, well, you're screwed.
... that it's a very bad idea to mix anything "genetically modified" and "cockroach"... Mimic anyone ? Am I the only one that envisions frothing swarms of sentient, mansized, flesh eating, multiplying-at-the-rate-of-yeast-bacteriae cockroaches surging out of Manhattans' manholes ?
On a brighter note, it could also spawn a new breed of crunchy luxury beer called "Skuttlebrau"
... just have a cockroach with a tiny little camera strapped to its back go in behind the yeast roach.
...the only W.M.D. the cockies will detect is a can of Mortein or Raid, yeast or not! Pfffssst!
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
This is why my girlfriend used raid on her yeast infection!
Who am i kidding - i don't have a girlfriend,or know what a yeast infection is........
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
That's not a open container of beer . It's a mobile WMD detection device!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
...welcome our new bread-making, anthrax-detecting, apocalypse-surviving insect overlords.
First the Navy trains dolphins to swim into mines, then the gov'ment is sending innocent cockroaches into the most hazardous sites without protection! Wait until PETA hears of this.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Sorry, but at this point, the idea to 'infest' a country with cockroaches because they're suspected of harboring WMDs sounds like little more than a reaaally big contract for the Orkin Man.
You are in a little twisting maze of passages, all different. You're screwed.
Do they send the cockroach with its yeasty sensors off in search of WMD, and then sit outside waiting for it to come back. Are cockroaches trainable or something. Am I missing something here?
I suppose homing pigeons have been be a bit obvious, and I guess if you send in enough cockroaches, one is bound to come back.
In other news, sales of 'Raid' have increased dramatically in the middle-east.
...actually seems to develop a symbiotic relationship with the host material."
In other words, the yeast appears to eat a portion of the Sol-Gel, and the Sol-Gel keeps the yeast alive.
How is this symbiotic ? It's not beneficial to Sol-Gel, is it ? Why can't journalists reporting science stories have them proof-read by a "science guy" ?
Now, only terrorists and "rogue" natious will have boric acid...
[o]_O
Who needs the yeast? if the cockroaches die, chaces are theres WMD in whatever building youre searching.
... Cockaroaches ARE WMDs.
"Oh good, here come the Americans with a nasty disease carrying pest which can not be killed."
Not From Concentrate.
Ok am I the only one who read the article title and thought "Windows Media Devices"? I guess cockroaches would be the best agents to find those suckers! :P
-Jason
Where are the People for the Ethical Treatment of Yeast
when we really, really need them?
Suddenly two years ago GWB decides that Biological, Chemical and Radioactive "dirty" bombs are now WMDs.
Let's be clear about this. Them beer-dipped roaches are not going to find any nukes ...
of honest poignant cutting insightful analysis of world events
but it will all mean absolutely nothing to anyone reading your words- it will even make people who would otherwise agree with you 100% bow their heads in shame and embarrassment and a desire to distance themselves from you
as long as you continue to demonstrate your mocking, belittling, arrogant tone for your fellow human being
that tone makes you an arrogant teenager, and not one bit more
and so no one will listen to you
you either understand this concept, or you understand nothing at all: your mocking tone makes you just as bad as all of the people you hate, for that mocking tone flows from the same "i am better than you and i have the right to treat you worse" bad psychological spot as all of the behavior you see that you hate
you demonstrate the same arrogance as those you hate
think about that
if you don't understand why that is blindingly obvious to anyone reading your words and fills them instantly with disgust at your blatant hypocrisy, then you are completely lost to the debate you obviously care so much about
i said it once, i'll say it again: get back to us when you grow up, teenager, and learn some simple respect for your fellow human being, at the very least develop an ability to demonstrate a surface-level appreciation of the concept that your holier-than-thou tone flat out sucks... otherwise, you are completely irrelevant to the debate you are engaging in
simple as that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One of the leading-edge National Labs (with government funding in the billions of dollars, probably) pours beer on cockroaches and lets them run around. Where did this idea come from? Let's see. They probably do nuclear research there, so they have radioactive materials in the labs. The scientists were sitting around, drinking beer while they worked. They saw cockroaches running around, and thought that it would be funny to pour beer on them. The cockroaches, trying to escape from sodden scientists, run into the lab cabinets. Presto! Beer-coated cockroaches are attracted to radioactive materials!
And you wonder why other countries are catching up with us in leading-edge technology.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
"get back to us when you grow up, teenager"
have you grown up yet?
"you fucking retard"
apparently not
consider my talking to you to be intellectual charity, as most everyone else is not reading a word you say
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Say the yeast is engineered to detect human disease. Then a doctor could print up a yeast card, have a patient breathe on it and determine what illness the person has, Brinker said.
And what if you have really bad breath? Will it tell you that you have cancer? Makes you wonder.
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
quality lockpicking book for sale at http://cafeshops.com/hackingtexts
Do they detect the French selling nuclear reactors to states ruled by dictators?
A friend of mine (who is a total pervert, deep into "upskirt" business and who even runs his own website dedicated to voyeurism deviation -- hi, Igor) told me recently that "an old-school shoe pinhole camera can only get us this far -- there are serious limitations which we need to overcome if we really want this industry to evolve." I am sure he could find a good use for these cockroaches as soon as they hit the mainstream market being equipped with a wireless mini camera. I can already see www.cock-roaches.com banner ads. This is really great news. (For perverts, that is.)
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."