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Engineered Bacteria Glows To Reveal Land Mines
MikeChino writes "Sifting through minefields to remove hidden threats is a dangerous, tedious, and expensive process. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh recently announced that they have engineered a strain of bacteria that glows green in the presence of explosives, making mine detection a snap. The new strain of bacteria can be sprayed onto local affected areas or air-dropped over entire fields of mines. Within a few hours the bacteria strain begins to glow wherever traces of explosive chemicals are present."
So can I add this the list of possible humanity-ending catalysts and/or future Michael Crichton novel plotlines? I vote to call it "glow goo" or perhaps simply "bactoswarm".
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Now we'll all have to be dunked in a vat of this stuff every time I go through TSA security. We get more like sheep every day.
Nullius in verba
This narrows down the places which need to be sweeped for mines. That alone makes this valuable. Minesweeping is hard work. I mean, I get payed to play 'minesweeper' all day long! I mean... err... um...
Yet *another* source of light pollution.
Without RTFA:
1 - Rocks and nearby puppies.
2 - Bacteria are asexual. These bacteria will, however, be able to spread an "asexual agenda" among native bacteria, who will begin to glow in the presence of other objects, like discarded cans, to look cool and "green."
3- Except for puppies, the bacteria are harmless. Unless you like eating gunpowder or landmines.
4- More landmines! No, wait, they'll be outbred by normal bacteria soon enough.
I hope that as the bacteria glows, it arranges itself into numbers indicating how many mines are nearby. It should making identifying the mined locations a simple matter of elimination.
Do they have a bacteria that can help me with FreeCell? I was already pretty good at Minesweeper.
I suspect that if that particular area was crop-dusted with the bacteria, the result would resemble a raggedly cut electroluminescent strip and be visible from space.
Now antiseptics will get on a list of controlled substances used to hide location of mines.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Well sure, but who has to go recover the goat? For that you need goat-recovering dogs.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Except that it doesn't really work that way. Plus, if you DID want to think about it that way you can say the bacteria has already realized that if it glows in the presence of explosives then we will grow large batches of the stuff to spray on the ground. If it decides not to grow then we will just destroy it and make another batch.
And then dog-recovering ponies.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
... on leashes.