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Trained Rats for Mine Detection
rikomatic writes "The dangerous profession of anti-personnel mine detection is getting a surprising new tool: giant Gambian rats (NY Times reg). Some resourceful Belgians have figured out how to train these 30-inch rodents to hunt out landmines. They are cheaper and work harder than dogs and are more reliable than metal detectors. Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
Well, they can't be trained too well or they'd have enough sense to stay away from those land mines.
Rats don't have a union and get paid 1/10th the food dogs do...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Well I'm gonna guess PETA might care. They aren't happy about the military using dolphins.
I mean, after they went nucking futs over the donkey bomb in the middle east, this is going to be insane.
Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Belgium will get some letters and protesters real quick.
Now we need somethign in the air and we're all set!
fp transient!
reg free version
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
NY Times
The Age
Seattle Post
I'm sick of this anti-rodent bias in humans! "Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?" says the poster, and not a one of you will disagree with him, will you?
Fuckin' speciests, the lot of you!
On a more serious note, people will be upset about this, if only because it costs time and money to train any animal, even rats.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Why not use lawyers instead. They aren't as cute and no-one gets attached to them.
Raaaaahhhh Brain... lets go mine hunting! I apologize in advance...
Down, down, down. The Red knight's goin' down.
Anyone else find it amusing that the link to more info about rats is to the NY times?
No first born required for reg. Here is the google partner link
Note to editors: Post a eff'ing no-reg required link.
> Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
My father was a giant Gambian rat, you insensitive clod!
John.
"Rodents of unusual size? They don't exist!" *rat attacks*
Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
They will...
-B
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Not as cool as my trained sharks with frickin laser beams....
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
PETA. They'll be all over this. I can't believe you posed the question, sarcasm as it may have been.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
uhm.. the guy who paid x thousand dollars to have it trained?
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
Perhaps some Rodents Of Unusual Size will be used explosion dampening devices.
OMG OMG OMG WTF OMG WTF BBQ STFU RTFM, OMFG OMG OMG OMG ROFL LMAO OMG WTF STFU ROFLMAO
"Rats don't have a union and get paid 1/10th the food dogs do..."
That's OK, just wait 'til those damn rats get outsourced to IT workers, who don't have a union and get paid 1/10th of the rats.
Just release thousands of rats into a field and let them blow up. Once you detonate the mines they're no longer a problem.
"Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
PETA, that's who....
Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
The rats' pan-dimensional, super-intelligent kindred will care, and I would not want to tangle with them.
We have lots of nutria here in Louisiana that might also be trainable for this. As an added bonus, after they blow, they should be just crispy enough to eat!
This way to the egress...
And how long 'til we hear "Hey! Whose rat is this?"
"MINE!"
"Rodents Of Unusual Size? Frankly, I don't think they... " *boom*
from Dr. Fegg's Encyclopedia of All World Knowledge
::Note::
Dr. Fegg has only ever written one national anthem. Here it is, reproduced for the first time. Dr. Fegg would like to remind all his readers that he has not yet been paid for it.
-The Gambian National Anthem-
Gambia, Oh Gambia,
Though only small and thin,
When it comes to being called Gambia,
You are the one to win.
Your capital is Bathurst
A name that means so much
To you who live in Gambia,
Though less so to the Dutch.
Gambia, where men are men
And trees fit in the ground.
The one six-lettered nation
Where Gambians abound!
Gambians! O Gambians!
Though your country is so thin
And most of it a river
It's the place that you live in.
From mountains down to flat bits,
Ring out your anthem great,
Though now you're part of Senegal
The words are out of date.
-Bertram Wesley Fegg DD
WARNING: Humming of this anthem, even to oneself, renders the reader liable for royalty payments. These should be sent to Dr. Fegg personally and *not*, repeat *not* to the chisellers at the Gambian embassy.
Many people ask: What is Dr. Fegg a doctor *of*? Well, without going into specifics Dr. Fegg has tried his hand at many things in his time.
His is the sort of mind that can encompass deck chair repairing, sweeping, billposting and the buying and selling of cars with one previous owner. So it is perhaps unfair and irrelevant to confine his extraordinary talents to the mundane world of labels and categories.
Dr. Fegg *has* delivered babies, but only during the busy pre-Christmas period when the Post Office can't cope. And Dr. Fegg has done brain surgery-- though *never*, repeat *never* in the Bournemouth area.
Personally I'd use all those responsible for placing the mines to remove them. Probably this would mean I'd have to hire Bush, Clinton etc.
How silly of them.
I think that we should start using some of the politicians out of DC. That would solve 2 problems at once.
Now if only we could just train humans not to plant the mines, *then* we'd be getting somewhere.
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
http://www.bugmenot.com.
I have a better idea. Train venomous snakes and the like to blow up land mines. Nobody will miss a snake that will possibly bite the crap out of you and kill you.
as they refuse to sign any mine treaties, just like every other treaty
do you see where the hate begins ?
...so, Darl has finally been trained to do something useful?
Maybe someone could cry if them don't blow up. Introducing new species in some environments could be harmful, and if they escape you could have a new plage on hand. There are already some examples of that happening, but as most should have seen the Simpsons examples of frogs in australia or lizards in springfield i think by now is evident why is bad.
I've just glimpsed the next wave of IT outsourcing, and I don't like it...
how dare you! i take offense to "if one blows up...who cares."!
--mickey mouse
that at the end of the article, it was going to mention how Mr. Cox has an uncle who died and left US 3.4M in a Tanzanian bank and with your help, it can be recovered?
Recipe from "We Make You Kindly Welcome" by Elizabeth C. Kremer
Ms. Kremer was in charge of our dining operation at the beginning of restoration and was responsible for setting the standards of excellence we maintain today. She developed many of her recipes from those handed down from the Shakers of Pleasant Hill. If you would like to purchase this cookbook call (859) 734-5411, x242.
Ingredients:
2 large lemons
4 eggs, well beaten
2 cups sugar
Slice lemons as thin as paper, rind and all. Combine with sugar; mix well. Let stand 2 hours, or preferably overnight, blending occasionally. Add beaten eggs to lemon mixture; mix well. Turn into 9-inch pie shell, arranging lemon slices evenly. Cover with top crust. Cut several slits near center. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake for about 20 minutes or until silver knife inserted near edge of pie comes out clean. Cool before serving.
Well that's what I thought about the U.S. Navy using dolphins for mine detection, but I took a lot flak from PETA for that one...
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
well, actually, they are light enough to not trigger the mine. sorry, no mashed giant rat for dinner.
You'll see that since they only weigh three pounds they don't trigger the mines.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
In most of the slashdot penetrating world, we think of dogs primarily as companion animals, and find the thougt of them being blown to bits in mine clearance as "sad" (at least I certainly would)
I suspect from the point of view of the mine-clearing-canine group from Canada (they were recently spotlighted in a television program on National Geographic here) - it is the cost of training the animal that is the more serious loss, than the emotional suffering the handlers may suffer from the loss of a companion. For one project they had on the order of a half-dozen animals. So, losing one in an accident would be a pretty serious reduction in force.
Hopefully with rats, the cost of training, supporting, and getting them into the mine fields would be low enough that the mission would be less adversely impacted by losing one animal.
I am certain my friend who keeps pet rats would be just as horrified imagining a rat being killed ina clearing accident as I would be imagining a dog suffering the same fate.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
My mother was a Gambian rat, you insensitive clod!
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
Here in Wisconsin last year we had an outbreak of the disease monkeypox which was traced back to some hedgehogs who had shared a cage with Gambian rats. Looks like trading one set of risks for another.
They should use womp rats.
They're not much bigger than two meters.
So what if a bunch of kids on Tatooine don't have live targets anymore? They should be using their T16s for more constructive things, anyway.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
At three pounds, they are too light to detonate mines accidentally.
Quoted directly from the NYT article.
I know most people are saying PETA might care ... but don't forget Willard!.
If the rats do get killed by the mines it'll give the troops a nice break from their MREs.
that would be unethical (rolls eyes)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Any prisoner for life can apply - you just have to run through a field potentially filled with landmines. If you make it, you're free. If not, well, too bad.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
killing is wrong. rat, dog, human - it doesn't matter.
especially for frivolous and deadly activites like landmine detection.
I for one welcome our new Gaint Rat overlords...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Does Slashdot get all or most of its "stories" from Wired and The Register?
*squeek!* *squeek!*
God job, cheesefoot!
*Ka-Booooom!*
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
Or...
Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering? Pinky: I think so Brain, but I'd rather go hump a landmine.. Narf! {BOOM!!!}
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
I for one welcome our new Gambian Rat Overlords.
There goes all that DARPA funding.
Sarcasm aside:
Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
Is answered in the NYT article:
Rats are abundant, cheap and easily transported. At three pounds, they are too light to detonate mines accidentally.
So, now PETA can stop worrying. The rats are not in harms' way.
Can't the military just tell everyone to leave for a minute, then drop a hailstorm of rocks over the minefield and set them all off? Sure, they might not *all* go off, but if a rock from 20,000 feet doesn't set it off, how could a person be expected to?
stuff |
Feed them Acme iron pellets. It will increase their weight + make them more attractive to armor detecting mines.
With the a bonus: When all of the mines are cleared, you can retrieve your remaining rats with your trusty ACME XXX Large HorseShoe Magnet.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
It's called teamwork and C-4.
You use mine detectors to locate potential mines.
You detonate a shaving of a C-4 brick over
the 'susptected' mine.
No mine? small bang. Mine? small bang with a large
woofer kick.
Accident rate? 0%
Problem? F'n dorkos get upset because we don't attempt to kill ourselves defusing it and finding out where the F' it came from.
Fuck em. 100% NO-accident rate is worth it in my book.
------------
Free mobile porn
That means the Gambians themselves wouldn't set them off as well due to the famine conditions they live in.
!
Me that's who!!!
I love rats, especially the Gambian Giant Rats, and just the thought of them scurrying to their potential deaths apalls me. Have some tact in your posts rikomatic, not everyone believes that rodents are vermin and not worth more than a mine detection "device". Let's take you favorite animal/pet and put it in harms way with a comedic comment and see how you like it...
You are not root, go away.
The whole idea seems somewhat childish in a twisted sense. Yet if it keeps people from tripping over the mines then I'm all for it. Not like there will ever be a rat shortage or love of rats.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
The rat is, as it streaks toward heaven in a billion tiny pieces.
Run a reomte controlled Hum-Vee in front of the convoy. We can confiscate them from rich spammers. More people would probably cry for the Hum-Vee.
What?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
The ROUSes and therefore the Fire Forest originate?
The princess bride was a better story than the article turned out to be. It turns out that it takes 2 observers and a rat to locate the mines and they have to section it off into lanes first. Not the safest procedure on planet earth. but then, the rats are the ones supposedly risking their necks.
Its rather interesting that in the article they talk about the rats like they're some time of machine that must be 'recalibrated' for each mine field.
Oh well, fun stuff.
-LoneWolf-
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It doesn't even need training. All you need to do is:
- Go to the Corley Motors Stadium
- Ask the guy in the shop about the shirt in his back
- While he is not looking, grap the little bunny in the outside
- Blow the bunny in the minefield and get the batteries
- Return to the shop, ask again about the shirt
- While the guy is not looking, put the battery in the radio controlled car
- Move the car inside the stadium
- When the guy goes after the car, grap as many little bunny boxes as you can
- Go back to the minefield and drop the boxes
- See the little cute bunny blowing up and paving you a safe way
[Damn, I NEED a new Full Throttle!]
I can't believe no one referenced good old Ben! What do they make you do?
I now realize that I do have a moderator fanboi out there somewhere. This person clearly waits with bated breath for me to post so they can -1 me.
/. time, and the only prior PETA comment was a 12:19 /. time. Sadly, that previous message didn't exist in the comment list when I made my post.
So my PETA response landed at 12:22
Mine being the second PETA post at the root level clearly warrants the use of a mod point to mark it Redundant. In fact I cannot think of a more practical use of mod points but to go hunting for similar obviously karma-whoring theft of other people's previously-invisible ideas.
Cheers, fanboi.
But that brings an idea to mind. What would happen if I intentionally created a fodder post on each article, then waited but 5 minutes to make my serious post? Would the perhaps multiple blunte fanbois burn their mod posts on my feint? That would be a sad shame.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
This is very on topic and I am glad someone had the courage to say it.
Since my favorite pet is anything that's well done, that works fo rme!
Frankly, you can have all the stupid deer that keep eating our plants are running into our car, and the stray dogs and cats in the area, and train them for this purpose, too.
If you can get the birds that keep nesting in the eaves, so much the better.
I witnessed one swimming in an open-air sewer in Brazil. It took the firefighters over an hour to get it in a cage. It weighed over 150 pounds. In case you wondering they are called capivara, though the spelling varies.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Maybe I'm seeing things, but did you just try to back up your argument with anecdotal evidence from The Simpsons? And then you got modded up as "Insightful"?!
Sir, you are clearly a better Slashdotter than I.
(P.S. - I'd imagine the rats would be sterilized.)
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
It's nothing but a joke until someone takes you seriously! Next thing you know you have a group of people called PETA.
...I read the headline as "Trained Rats for Mime Detection" which sounded about right; no human should have to suffer such an indignity.
Damn you, Marcelle Marceau, you are not trapped in an invisible box.
Sailing over the event horizon
Those white mice may get angry!
Hey - they're probably already used to dangerous places to live....
on the other hand, I vote we send these guys in.
korc
u mean to tell me that putting dogs through mentally and physically grueling years and years of training is ethical? Or that there aren't enough seeing-eye dogs for the blind is ethical?!
Screw that...do it on a big boat in the middle of the pacific (in international waters).
That's "specieist" of you.
I saw a docu on national TV on this.
They were training the rats. They had to stop at dishes with TNT traces.
The trainers gradually reduced the amount of TNT. It was reduced so far that it was undetectable, yet the rats still stopped.
The bastards no longer reacted on the TNT, but at the smell of the guy who filled the dishes every day. They had to be retrained, wasting a few months.
But, hey, you can't blame them taking the easy road.
So that means you're volunteering to go find land mines? If not: shut up.
Does anyone else think that using rats for military purposes sounds like a half baked plan to take over the world, cooked up by a super villain from a poorly wrriten cartoon. "Go my rat army, kill kill!"
If we're trying to be more humane, shouldn't we use These Folx instead?
Hey, it was better than a lawyer joke...
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
If rats work well, maybe they could user lawyers. After all, there is stuff even rats won't do...
Only on Slashdot could a post about super intelligent rats be considered "insightful" ...
Or maybe the mods just have a perverse sense of humour?
And to thing I wasted all that time looking for a PayPal account to donate to.
the old "Wizard of Id" cartoon in which a group of protesters are imploring the king to give up animal testing.
His response was to ask for volunteers to take the animals' places.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Why don't they use lawyers and politicians? There'd be a lot less liklihood of protesters...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
First we use rats to get the mines
Then we use giant snakes to get the rats
then mongoose to get the snakes
killer bees to get the mongoose
venus flytraps to get the bees
agent orange to get the venus flytraps
mines to stop the paramilitaries using agent orange
Whoa - a complete cycle!
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
I thought darl was a rat. Isn't he?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The seals had little to nothing to do ith your dwindling cod population. Overfishing had everything to do with it. Now kill the damn seals, take their pelts and eat them -- I have no problem with that. But making a scapegoat of something -- lying to others and yourselves, not listening to the obvious truth and blaming your sins on Elvis, space-beings, Canada, rock-music or seals? Now that's abhorrent.
Aww, I think they're cute. Any chance of training Darl instead?
...and say we did, and send him out there anyway.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I say we use a bunch of spammers, solve two problems in one. Oh wait. Shit. I mean, not me.
When they read this: In most of the slashdot penetrating world
It seems to me that the areas that are most heavily mind also grow or have easy access to heroin. I say we use one problem to solve another. Why not get a bunch of rats, and make them into a bunch of raging crack whores. during training the lab techs could mix small amouns of the explosive they are trying to clear in with the drugs they get as a reward for doing a job. Then you haul a bunch of these rats into the target area, wait till they are really jonesing for a fix and let them go. It might be good to tell everyone to stay under cover first though. Like the above and the article points out, the rats may not set off the mines by walking on them, but would they if they started clawing at them thinking that somebody hid a dime bag inside? I know this sounds terribly bloody minded, but it seems like a good choice on ethical and rational grounds. And, I admit, it would be fun to see the PETA freaks explode in rage.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
We would not be in this situation if the imperialistic morons who we let rule us world-wide who like to start wars to sort out all the messes they create and get all the suggestible populations of the world to blindlly/obediantly follow them around, then I guess we will have to force small creatures to get blown to bits trying to find these mines.....Do you give a rat's ass about such things, if you don't, then I guess some rat will somewhere?
This is not so really new.
The Russians trained dogs to feed under tanks. They starved them for days, then let them free with their food to be found under tanks.
When the Germans came, the dogs were loaded up with anti-tank devices, triggered by a lever on their backs. After a few days of no food, the Russians let them free in the German occupied terrority. Of course, the dogs ran straight to the German tanks looking for, and expecting food **BANG**
After a few weeks of this, the Germans were so shit scared of this 'terrorist' activity, they used to shoot any dog on sight, taking no chances, so slowly the Russians use for the dogs faded.
Then the Russian boffins discovered that mice used to nest in the tanks (nice and warm) and used to strip electrical cabling to make their nests - very shortly rendering the tank useless until repaired (very difficult). They bred and released thousands of mice to attack the German tanks in this way.
The Germans fed-up of of this type of terror attack, struck back by dropped cats from aircraft to combat the mice attack, and that worked very well...
then the Russians had a brain wave, and brought out the 'retired' tank dogs to get the cats.
The full circle!
Amazing, but true.
Nick
Mines are a key part to defending S Korea, specifically in a 2.5 mile wide 150 mile long demilitarized zone. Clinton put in place a policy to restrict mine usage only to Korea by 2003 with plans to sign the treaty in 2006 if a viable alternative could be found for the Korean DMZ. Honestly though, I have no idea if the current administration has held to that.
But the US also uses "smart mines" which automatically disarm themselves, although they're still only 99.99% effective.
"Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
I was raised by giant Gambian rats, you insensitive... oh nevermind. I'm calling Peta, the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
And here's a summary of extracts from the Bible discussing the special relationship Jesus had with all animals.
Thats why I placed the "roll eyes" comment. It was sarcasim.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Obligatory "aaawwwww, isn't it CUTE!"
30 inches though. That's one very large rat.
Am I the only one that smells a giant Gambian rat rescue set-up a mile away?
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
After reading the various replies, it is obvious that there is a small percentage of people who would actually regret the loss of a rat.
We should train Spammers instead! Certainly no one would miss them. In fact, we could outfit them with lead boots for extra fun.
But they got too many false positives. Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
not sure how you do it with a dolphin but self aware test is normally performed by marking a dot on the animals forhead then showing it's reflection a selfaware animal will realise that the reflection is it and thus, notice it has a dot on it's forehead not sure how you'd gage a dolphins self awarness
also, i assume this has more to do with an animals understanding of reflections not their inability to determine they exist (but psychologists think otherwise)
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Please dont harm them, there are better animals who can do this job. Politians, CEOs, Lawyers... Ok, all of these species are less intelligent, but they are perfectly suitable for doing this job.
'twas referring to the mod who overrated my post.
Screw PETA, kids avoid getting blown up while playing soccer etc beacuse of stuff like this.
You just turned the "for the children" argument AGAINST the left!
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's not remotely unreasonable for someone who doesn't personally want to go and find land mines to express an opinion about using rats to find them. Unless you can demonstrate that it's a clear choice between volunteers or rats. Which of course, it isn't.
:-)
So, if you want to post something which holds some semblence of actual reasoning, go ahead. If not: shut up.
Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
We, the Gambian Rat lovers! You insensitive clod!
I could use some trained mines for rat detection in my apartment.
Rest assured that that connection would cease to be there if it doesn't find the mine carefully enough. At that point it would fail the sentient test and become merely "sent'.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes quite often. -- Mark Twain
American .. I could have blamed terrorism.. Would that have made sense?
Perhaps another good idea would be to STOP USING FUCKING LANDMINES
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
My only guess is that the mines are too powerful. But anti-personel mines don't generate that much force (they are designed to injure, not kill, as to get more people off the battlefield). Even the larger ones... it seems like if we just built a large machine with the driver secured behind some protection (hell, make it remote control), we could just blow them up....
Darl were Gambian.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Read up on the Mozambique civil war. Both sides laid mines:, the Marxist Frelimo government and the Renamo rebels. Renamo was supported by the white governments of South Africa and Rhodesia.
See where the misinformation begins?
The other country mentioned in the NYT article is Afghanistan. Guess which large imperialist country invaded Afghanistan and scattered millions of mines in it? The Soviet Union.
1: we dont need animal flesh to survive. i've been veg*n for more than 5 years, and i'm perfectly healthy. checkout the lists of vegan/veggie bodybuilders, marathon runners, etc etc. it's EASIER to survive on plants and animal flesh, but not necessary. and, if you want to go for the long term numbers, i'd be willing to be that vegetarians live much longer lives (aggregrate) than meat-eaters (think McD's big mac and it's 5869495 grams of fat).
2: PETA fanatics don't blow people up. PETA might be out on a limb sometimes (i agree with some of what they do, and other times i think their tactics are mismanaged at best).. but they arent murderers (afaik). I think you're thinking of ELF, which has a more "hands-on, burn-your-house-down-with-you-in-it" type approach.
I have always hated mine sweeper. I say let the rats have it. They must be better than me at guessing what all those numbers over the squares mean!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Bender: Who wants dolphin? [Everyone gasps]
Leela: Dolphin? But dolphins are intelligent.
Bender: Not this one. He blew all his money on instant lottery tickets.
Leela: Oh. That's different. Pass the blowhole.
You shoot the hostage in the leg. No, wait...
In fact, Apopo uses rats, in part, because they are lightweight and very unlikely to set off landmines. (Otherwise native wildlife would routinely set off mines.) It would not be a very effective solution if they spent 1/3 of the animal's life training it and then sent it out to be killed the first time it found a mine. The rats that they train have a natural life expectancy of around 8 years - and the handlers want them to live as long as possible to maximize the time and effort. There is even an alternative method they are investigating which involves filters - the rats don't even go near the suspected areas. I can't see much that PETA could complain about here.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Seriously though, I know that animal rights activists will be furious over this, but certain humanitarian issues do have to be tackled, and this may work.
> You use mine detectors to locate potential mines.
You detonate a shaving of a C-4 brick over the 'susptected' mine.
Read the quoted reference: http://www.llnl.gov/str/Azevedo.html . Your 100% drops quite a bit. Not quite 'failsafe' if all mines aren't detected, is it?. Or maybe you meant failsafe for the *minesweepers*, not for the folks who may live there afterwards?..
You can bank on it. They will complain about any use of any animal. No matter what the underlying use of the animal may be. Anfd yes, that includes saving human lives. You see, in the eyes of groups like PETA, Earth First, The ALF, animals have the same, exactly the same, rights that you and I enjoy. Some are even so extreme in their beliefs that they will risk human lives and welfare to protect the lives of animals. They are all NUTS.
Pulling in a 30-in rat by the tail
Running away from a rat - against the wind
Stuck in box with a ferrocious rat
Stuck in an enormous rat trap
Nibbling cheese - preening whiskers
Following an imaginary maze
You know, mimes have WAY too much time on their hands.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Hrm, New York Times is hosting a news article about giant rats...
Coincidental? I think not.
Wrong wrong wrong. I'm quite sure the b12 in my nutritional yeast and the b12 in my soymilk are not "itself, an animal product." B12 itself is not inherently manufacturered by either plants or animals - they come from bacteria. Animal foods (meat, etc) get b12 from the bacteria in the food those animals eat or from the bacteria in those animals' intestines. Similarly, the fortification of soymilk or nutritional yeast (or a bunch of other vegan products) originally comes from bacteria of some sort.. But to argue that bacteria is a sentient being (which would make your original statement valid) seems.. off.
From Fox News. The story related to a monkey-pox outbreak spread by Gambian Rats that were caged with groundhogs (and later sold).
Gamgian Rat
Sorta cute if you like rats.
i saw that about 2 years ago on german television. It was an feed about the "academy" that trains the rats... Back then it was so horribly inefficient:
1. take a 3x3meter field.
2. Put about 10 small wooden posts on 2 sides of the field.
3. put some strings between each 2 posts.
4. take the rat, attach a string with a hook to its neck.
5. attach the hook to one of the strings above
6. have a buddy standing at the opposite post
7. have your buddy offering some rat-food to the rat to motivate her moving along the string
8. wait until the rat has successfully crossed the field
9. check if the rat has found anything of interest
10. do not touch it... could be a mine!
this takes about 1 minute per string x10 per field xN per size of area...
maybe their have enhanced their technique by now but i doubt it...
it's not like you throw a big box of rats from a plane and wait for them to clean entire landstrips... you have to have at least 1 person to monitor each rat, a person who trusts his rat!
perhaps when militant extremist seals kill thousands of your fellow citizens. Oh I sorry, I'll need to translate it to Canadian:
blah, blah, blah, blah, Hoozer...
...use Indian rats! They'll work for less, and they were undesirable people in a previous life!
Best Buy can have you arrested
Uhmm... Them rats is just trying to improve their public image. IIRC it was a shipment of Gambian rats that brought Monkeypox to the US (and thence to Richardson's ground squirrels aka prairie dogs and thence to humans).
Stop messing with the submissions, CmdrTaco!
Here's the original:
"The dangerous profession of anti-personnel mine detection is getting a surprising new tool: Gambian negroes (NY Times reg). Some resourceful Belgians have figured out how to train these 1.8 m simians to hunt out landmines. They are cheaper and work harder than dogs and are more reliable than metal detectors. Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
You do realize that large mammals, including endangered species, are killed and maimed by mines?
Excellent point. Animal testing sometimes also benefits other animals.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
You eat vegetables and other plants every day, don't you? Do you ever consider that they, just like the jews, are alive? I have heard the cries of carrots voilently uprooted with their siblings, chewed or boiled while still alive. Just because you can't hear them speak, doesn't mean they're not sentient, etc. . . .
IIRC, the US wouldn't sign, because the treaty would make these things illegal too:
- Anit-tank mines with anti-tampering devices which could be set off by a person.
- Anit-personell mines which explode after some hours.
I hoped they would sign, too.
the problem is you're trying to find "suspected" mines. That's cool, but doesn't clear all mines in a given area, only the ones you suspect are there.
Better to unleash a few well trained rats.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Anyhow, the embarrassing moment came when Bardot said to the press who had accompanied her, something like, "This hunt is so cruel. I know, I held one of the little darlings in my arms."
What everyone was embarrassed to say was, "Um, excuse me. Miss Bardot, that wasn't a live baby seal, that was one that had been stuffed by a taxidermist."
So, if she can't tell a live seal from a stuffed one, it wouldn't surprise me if she couldn't tell a dog from a rat.
*Mild spoiler warning!* ... Which you had to use to clear the minefield in front of the Vulture's hideout. Cute, yellow, mechanical bunnies handled by a grizzly biker. LucasArts was ahead of its time on that one!
I thought "Belgians" was bad enough! ...arg, don't get to use that one often enough.
But if they were stopped tomorrow, the world would still be polluted with already deployed landmines.
Why not use SCO employees instead? Nobody'd be as attached to Darl as they might get to a lab rat. And some lawyers have redeeming values.
Not many, but some...
Anyhow, I doubt there's anyone at SCO who rates above rats on the cuddly scale.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
thank you, kevin. very well put.
for me, being veg*n (or any form of strong belief) is about finding a middle ground you're comfortable with. nothing in life is black and white (well, very little).. so most of what we (read: i) do is trying to navigate the gray area as best i can. if you wear shoes or comercially produced clothes or drive a car or do anything but essentially live in a commune, you can never be 100% vegan. do what you can, so that you can live your life and be comfortable with who you are.
If all you wanted was to cause rodents to explode on mines I can think of more amusing ways of doing so. Examples -Rat golf -Rad lawn bowling -Rat crochet (sp?) -Rat shotput -Rat cricket Or just plain old throwing rats at where you think mines may be, as it re-orients and runs its bound to hit a mine.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
then you'd get lawyer recursion as each lawyer's lawyer argued for a motion to appeal the motion filed by his predecessor for *each* lawyer being sent into the minefield.
Then we'd run out of stack space and the universe would collapse. Simple really.
=)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Lodragandraoidh asserts:
An egg is an embyonic chicken - so in essence by consuming the egg you are killing the chicken.
You are mistaken, an egg is not an embryonic chicken. The chicken eggs you buy in a store are unfertilized. They are not embryos and, since they had already left the chicken before collection, have absolutely no chance of turning into a chicken no matter what is done with them.
On rare occasions, a quality control error occurs, and you actually do get a fertilized egg, which is an embryonic chicken. I have observed this twice in over three decades. I've seen more car accidents than fertilized eggs sold for food.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Me for one. Why not use something no one will miss - like corporate lawyers.
I can't make it to this week's Scientology meeting!
Have you heard about the new German microwave ovn? Seats eight!
to find those land mines.....
a biowarfare arms race? :P
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Ordinary domesticated rats have been trained to go through stud walling and tortuously complex runs following their owners' tapping on the outer plasterboard and pulling with them a trace string which is then used to pull in a UTP / Telephone /Mains /antenna/ wtf cable. simplifies a complex expensive and time consuming process.
I love rats, especially the Gambian Giant Rats, and just the thought of them scurrying to their potential deaths apalls me.
As stated from the article, one reason to use the rats is because they won't set off the mines. I suppose there's potential death from predators in the area, but...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.