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Rescue Rats to Find Buried Victims
adaminnj writes "Rats are being trained to sniff out the buried victims of earthquakes and bomb blasts and could be sent to search for survivors in the same way as dogs. The idea of being rescued by a rat may not appeal to many people, but they have the advantage of being able to crawl almost anywhere and slip through small holes and crevices. Like dogs, they also have a highly acute sense of smell. But to be successful rescuers, they must be able to home in on victims and signal their position to waiting rescue teams."
Rats can also be used to search for buried mines. You might want to read this interesting NYT article about it. It was featured on slashdot some months ago, IIRC.
There have been rats in training since a month after september 11th (the year where al-queda struck), maybe even before, and it was in the news back then too. A quick sweep over to google will reveal that.
Rescue rats will sniff out buried victims
JOHN INNES
RATS are being trained to sniff out the buried victims of earthquakes and bomb blasts and could be sent to search for survivors in the same way as dogs.
The idea of being rescued by a rat may not appeal to many people, but they have the advantage of being able to crawl almost anywhere and slip through small holes and crevices.
Like dogs, they also have a highly acute sense of smell.
But to be successful rescuers, they must be able to home in on their victims and signal their position to waiting rescue teams.
American scientists have been training rats to find human flesh irresistible.
They are also developing a radio backpack which will transmit signals from the rats' brains to alert search leaders on the surface.
A report on the project, funded by the Pentagon's research arm Darpa, appears in New Scientist magazine. Scientists first identified the nerve messages rats generate when they find a scent they are looking for.
John Chapin, a neuroscientist from the State University of New York, who is taking part in the research, said: "When a dog is sniffing a bomb, he makes a unique movement that the handler recognises. Instead of the rat making a conditioned response, we pick up the response immediately from the brain."
Each rat has electrodes implanted in three areas of the brain which process odour signals, plan movements and experience rewards.
The scientists stimulated the reward centre to generate feelings of pleasure when the rodent's nose picked up a whiff of human flesh. In this way, the rats were trained to seek out human odours.
They were then set to forage for a target meal while their brainwaves were monitored.
The "aha!" moment when a rat discovered the source of the smell was identified by a particular brainwave pattern.
As well as being able to track a rat's position from signals relayed by the radio transmitter, rescuers will also know when to start digging.
Software being developed by the scientists will recognise the "aha!" moment when the rat has found its target.
The team hopes to create a working rat rescue system within nine months.
If you like stories about animals sniffing things, they also have stories about giant rats sniffing out tuberculosis and dogs sniffing bladder cancer just to name two recent stories. I check out their news section first thing in the morning, then the nytimes, then slashdot.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Domestic rats don't just "bite victims." They're handled by humans from birth and become as docile and friendly as a well-treated dog. Mass media makes people think rats are vicious. Any wild animal will defend itself if you fuck with it.
There are psychopaths in the canine world, too, who view humans as food, but they don't last very long in the rescue-dog program. I shouldn't think psycho rats would, either.
The likelihood of rescue rats chomping on the people they find is probably on the same order as rescue dogs eating survivors. First of all, for evolutionary reasons that probably fall under "TMI," rats are neophobes--they are reluctant to try new foods. A rat raised on pelleted rat chow simply won't recognize a human as food.
Also, while rats are predators and will eat other rodents, insects, and small animals, humans just don't fall into their range of prey animals.
And these rats are presumably going to be well fed, well trained, and bonded with humans--as strongly bonded as a dog might be. It would never occur to such a rat to chew on a live person. It would be like you deciding to chow down on a baby.
Now, chewing on dead humans is another matter--dead humans and animals smell different from live humans/animals, and to a rodent, the minute something's dead, it's meat. I don't think a rat used to pelleted food would be inclined to eat carrion, but it's a lot more likely than a rat chewing on a live human.
This doesn't negate any of the technical or public-relations problems involved, but the one that's kicking people's primal response--the fear of being chewed on by rodents in the dark--is probaby not realistic under most circumstances. At least, not with these rodents.
What you might expect is that the happy rat would express its joy by licking, grooming, or snuggling with a human, which could be disconcerting. As someone pointed out, rats do have an upsetting tendancy to stick their heads in people's ears and mouths, although they tend to do that only with beloved and trusted friends. (These are submissive behaviors; when they're doing it, they're treating you as a dominant rat.)
Hmmm--rattie blankets--half a dozen rats snuggled around a body could keep anyone warm. As people have said, might be hard to explain to a fear-crazed buried person what's going on, though.
Maybe the rats' transmitters should broadcast a message:"I am a rescue rat. I will not hurt you. Help is on the way."
--singingnettle