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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."
talk about being ratted out
And if the person is dead, eat them, thus saving costly search 'n' find excursion parties.
To me, the most interesting thing about this is how they "train rats to feel pleasure at the smell of humans", then monitor their brains for any pleasure stimulus.
But what happens when they come running to find that the rat has uncovered the world's largest cache of underground cheese?
Love the Third Amendment?
hope they don't train them with cheese.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
"Hurrah! A rat, something to eat and drink at last!
Dunno what this transmitter thing is, must have got trapped around the creature somewhere..."
..trapped under 12 feet of concrete rubble, not being able to move, and a rat is gnawing at your face...
oh joy
The idea of being rescued by a rat may not appeal to many people
I bet it'd appeal more to most people than 'don't be rescued' though...
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.
Unless your name is Winston Smith shout out to George Orwell
This reminds me of an article that was pinned up in the copy room at Lucent in Allentown a while ago about rats that had been trained to run telecom and network cables through existing ductwork in schools. It was quite a few years ago so I forget the specifics, but it looked rather cool. Google has been unhelpful for the moment, but I'm still searching for more information.
PepperHacks - Hacking the Pepper Pad
We both found what we were looking for
With a friend to call my own
I'll never be alone
And you, my friend, will see
You've got a friend in me
(you've got a friend in me)
Ben, you're always running here and there
Finding dead bodies everywhere
If you ever look behind
And don't like what you find
Keep going and follow my distant calls
Under these broken walls
(under these broken walls)
I used to scream "HELP!!!" and "ME"
Now it's "us", now it's "we"
I used to scream "HELP!!!" and "ME"
Now it's "us", now it's "we"
Ben, most people would turn you away
I can't hear a word they say
They only see you as some trouble
Searching all this rubble
I'm sure they'd think again
If they had a friend like Ben
(a friend) Like Ben
(like Ben) Like Ben
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Yeeaah, that's a good idea. Train rats to enjoy hunting down humans. This will end well, lol.
I've heard of stuff like this before.
I read of a project that was training weasels, or maybe ferrets, something in that family for the same type of thing. They're naturally curious, able to squeeze through unimaginable spots, etc.
The weasels were big enough to strap a little camera and transmitter to, and the idea was that they'd just go everywhere in the rubble.. Their natural curiosity would handle that part.
Them biting/eating victims (another natural instinct) was a problem. So the rescue critters would be "de-fanged", or rather have their teeth filed down when it was time to actually go to work. This of course, cripples the animal for the rest of it's life but the logic is "we sacrifice a couple of chinchillas to save one human life and it's worth it".
Of course, PETA and the like threw a fit. But even "animal lovers" look the other way when it comes to rats.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I first thought this was something else than what I've been reading about recently, and not just about using yet another trained animal.
/. blurb forgot to mention that what's so special is that the rats have electrodes implanted in their brains, which send a signal to the rescuers when the rat has found what it's looking for.
I thought wrong.
The
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
If you do a bomb atack also release 20 hungry cats in the area.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Are you confusing probes with robots? Too many people call mindless automatons robots. A robot, at least in my mind, needs some kind of intelligence. I'm not sure that our current ability to create an AI, in a package small enough to move around under rubble, is even remotely feasible right now. Rats are light. They are smart enough to do tasks when trained. They are agile enough to have a good chance of not killing themselves on dangerous surfaces. Robots are cool, but let's be realistic. Save a life any way you can.
This one is easy. Just program a microphone to pick up on the sounds of flesh being torn from the bones of the victims, and treat this as the "Found one!" signal. Hopefully you can triangulate the position of the victim before they are fully devoured.
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.
... can this technique be used on women to train them to seek out the smell of all us unwashed geeks and nerds!
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
Today, a robot wouldnt be able to detect a individual 1/2 dead person and seek them out.
Animals do this by 2nd nature.. And they are cheap...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
I don't know about you, but the last thing i want to see after being buried under rubble from a collapsed building is a freakin' rat.
They better dress these disease caddies in orange jumpsuits and affix a shot of something to a barrel under their necks.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
Rats are light. They are smart enough to do tasks when trained.
Not only that, but rats are also dirt-cheap - unlike an equally-equipped "robot" would be. Yeah, this is the 21st century, and humans do think they rule the planet, but nature really does have a head start on us.
Besides, robots would just eat old people's medicine for fuel.
they have the advantage of being able to crawl almost anywhere and slip through small holes and crevices.
So do ferrets. But I'd imagine they're too cute for most people to want to set them free in burning rubble.
Slashdot links this article on cyborg rats used in search and rescue. I've been told that one big problem is giving a guarantee that the rats don't begin eating the people (dead or alive) they find. I suppose that the stimulation of pleasure centers of the brain would dominate other such carnal urges. All of this is desirable for a few reasons. The computer-rat brain interface research is also very applicable to computer-human brain interface. I just went to this very interesting talk on the subject. Further, very dexterous robots with high level perception are few and far between. A rat is amazingly mobile and also has an excellent perception suite. Of course, along the way, projects like this could save lives, and that is always wonderful.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Personally I think its a fantastic idea. I've had a pet rat myself, and known a couple of other people who had them. They're smart as hell, easy to train and they're cheap. I've heard of aid workers in Africa training rats to find mines in mine fields. They're too small to set the mine off, but can sniff out the explosives like a dog. If you can train a mine sniffing rat, a human sniffing rat should be easy.
Using animals as workers is actually something I like the idea of. Like mixing llamas in with sheep. The llamas will adopt the sheep as it's flock and the sheep aren't afraid of the llama. But a llama can and will kick a coyote's ass if one comes sniffing around. (And literally kick the coyote's ass.) I do feel sorry for the people that have to volunteer to lie under rubble while they're training the rats though, but hey, its for a good cause. (How would you put that on your resume? Well yes, for 6 months last year I was employed as a trapped earthquake victim for rat training. No, seriously.)
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
After working with them, we found them to be pretty intelligent and very clean. On top of that, they seem to be able to get into amazing places.
We had a pair of rats in particular that we kept as "pets" (the rest were used for breeding and were sold to pet stores). These two rats were large, white and housebroken (easier to do with a rat than a dog). They got along very well with our two cats and one dog. We used to sit, watching TV with them curled up on our laps.
All that being said, although I've never had to be rescued from a collapsed building, I have had to be rescued from a plane crash in the boonies before. Frankly, I wouldn't have cared if they sent a Kodiak Grizzly to find me, I just wanted to be rescued. However, having crashed in a grizzly area, I'd have to admit that it would have been emotionally distressing for me and potentially dangerous for the bear (I don't fly over those areas unarmed - for good reason).
So, (and I can only imagine here) being buried under a pile of rubble, I'm pretty sure I'd be worried about rats in the first place (keep in mind I like rats - but I also know them). This rat-rescuer had better be very well marked as such or it's history. For someone, like my mother, it would be traumatic to be rescued by a rat, but if she were burried, and the rat was marked as a "rescue-rat", even she might come around.
As far as being able to train a rat to do the deed, I have no doubt that it can be done. But there are going to be quite a few perceptual hurdles to overcome. For many, it'd be like training a snake to rescue people. They could get into even tighter spaces, but half your victims would die of fright before you could get them out and you'd be pulling out a badly beaten snake for the other half.
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
"Hurrah! A rat, something to eat and drink at last!
Ah, finally a chance for a Black Adder quote.
Black Adder:
What's on the menu?
Baldrick:
Rat. Saute or fricasse?
Black Adder:
Oh, the agony of choice. And sauteed involves?
Baldrick:
Well, you take the freshly shaved rat, and you marinate it in a puddle for awhile.
Black Adder:
Uh-hmm, for how long?
Baldrick:
'Til it's drowned. Then you stick it out under a hot light bulb, then you get within dashing distance of the latrine and you scoff it right down.
Black Adder:
So that's sauteing, and fricasse?
Baldrick:
Exactly the same, just a slightly bigger rat.
The idea of being rescued by a rat may not appeal to many people
If I'm trapped under a collapsed building after an earthquake for a week, drinking my own urine and eating scraps of drywall, I don't care if it's RMS and Darl McBride who rescue me while debating the GPL.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Yes, not getting rescued would definitely suck. But I hope they put these little suckers in some little 'rat rescue' uniform, otherwise when the rat does find the person, that person it going to be scared shitless that not only are they buried but the rats have started to find them.
Heck, maybe a little rat loud-speaker saying "don't panic, this is a trained rescue rat" on a loop or someting.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.