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."

Comments

Pitch

[ExE122]

...making mine detection a snap

I dunno, sounds like a sales pitch to me... you should have either written it in all caps Billy Mays style or said, "Made in Scotland... you know the Scottish make good stuff"

Reguardless, the article has already been /.ed so here are some other sources: Discover, Treehugger, and DNA

Re:Pitch

[OverlordQ]

Your first two links are the same, might have been meant to direct here instead.

Re:Pitch

[MyLongNickName]

This would likely be used for already existing minefields. Afghanistan is the most mined country in the world, and cleanup efforts are very tedious. I think that is the market for this product.

Re:Pitch

[tophermeyer]

Also useful in Southeast Asian countries, where cleanup is all but ignored by local government, and the practical cost of disposal is roughly 1 human appendage per mine.

Re:Pitch

[Maximum Prophet]

Or, after one or more mines explode, does the entire field become tainted with explosive residue?

Re:Pitch

[Chapter80]

Do they have a bacteria that can help me with FreeCell? I was already pretty good at Minesweeper.

Re:Pitch

[reverseengineer]

It looks like the University of Edinburgh entered this project in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, so they have a project page with a lot of information. From what I gather, it would appear that the system is based on a system of enzymes that break down soil nitrites which have been linked to Green Fluorescent Protein. Nitrites are a natural byproduct of the breakdown of nitro-based explosives like TNT and PETN. Of course, soil nitrites from non-leaking landmine sources, like chemical fertilizers would also trigger fluorescence, so the team engineered a non-natural gene promoter protein. The genes to produce the fluorescent complex only get transcribed and translated into protein if the promoter is active. The activator for that promoter is a molecule of TNT, so the bacteria will only glow if TNT is present.

I'd also encourage people to take a look at the other iGEM projects. Lots of interesting reading.

Re:Pitch

[Vainglorious Coward]

Afghanistan is the most mined country

Afghanistan comes in 4th according to this source. I was a little surprised that Egypt tops that list.

Re:Pitch

[PRMan]

I had a co-worker from Afghanistan in the past (nice guy). He said that his uncle would do it is to buy a field with land mines on it for cheap and then just let a herd of goats graze the property. If a goat exploded, that one was dinner.

Simple. Cheap. Effective.

Re:Pitch

[amicusNYCL]

Well sure, but who has to go recover the goat? For that you need goat-recovering dogs.

Re:Pitch

[tsm_sf]

And then dog-recovering ponies.

Re:Pitch

[reverseengineer]

In most soils, there live denitrifying bacteria, whose metabolism is based on reducing oxidized forms of nitrogen, eventually turning it back into nitrogen gas which reenters the atmosphere. These bacteria are recyclers, generally getting on by "unfixing" the fixed forms of nitrogen most other organisms rely on to survive, and so tend not to be picky about their nitrogen sources. They have enzymes called flavoprotein reductases that let them get nitrogen from organic nitrates, like from decaying organic matter. It turns out, however, that these enzymes also let them use many of our most common nitrated chemical explosives as a nitrogen source as well. In fact, one such enzyme has even been named PETN reductase, like the PETN that's in Semtex. I'm saying that if you spray liquid explosive on soil, the bacteria that already live there will eat it like candy. The mines would far outlast the spraying, which is exactly the problem- landmines around the world have far outlasted the conflicts they were laid for in the first place.

The method proposed by this group from Edinburgh actually takes advantage of that process, though. An old landmine or unexploded ordnance is probably going to be slowly leaching explosive out of the weapon. This means that soil near the device will contain the explosive itself, and also nitrites, which are produced as an intermediate step of breaking down the explosive material.

The group set up a sort of two-factor authorization. They genetically engineered promoters, proteins that bind to DNA and promote transcription of a particular genetic sequence, for two fluorescent proteins. Nitrite ion binds to the promoter for luxAB.GFP, which is a fusion protein of bacterial luciferase and green fluorescent protein. Thus, whenever nitrites are present, this protein gets made, and the bacterium glows a pleasing blue-green color. Not just fluoresces, mind you, but actively puts out light, due to the luciferase part. There is another sequence, for enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (eyfp). That promoter is activated by the presence of trinitrotoluene; the group used computational methods to develop a protein that binds DNA if it is also bound to TNT. Unlike the luxAB.GFP fusion protein, eyfp only fluoresces. It will glow yellow only if higher energy light has been input. So if pure TNT were present, the bacterium would make eyfp, but would only glow under UV light. When only nitrites are present, it actively glows blue. When both are present, the luxAB.GFP dumps light on eyfp, and the bacteria actively glow yellow. And then you call the bomb squad.

Re:Pitch

[B3ryllium]

... on leashes.

Nice idea, but...

[TrentTheThief]

Exploded mines and artillery shells leave unburnt residue.

Grey Goo 2.0?

[Itninja]

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".

Oh great !

[bugs2squash]

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.

I don't think you comprehend the problem

[SuperKendall]

Now they'll either lace the entire field with C4, or they'll start using remote detonators when people move in to disarm.

The largest problem with land mines is that there are so many in areas where there is no longer any kind of combat - kids or other civilians go in the fields and lose life and limb. This helps with that. We're talking WW2 era stuff here.

Modern warfare by insurgents is ALREADY past mines, since they don't have an endless amount of money to spend - they already place explosives and use remote detonators when troops come by.

Re:I don't think you comprehend the problem

[dontmakemethink]

I wouldn't say that they're "past" mines, if anything they lack the resources and facilities to make a proper mine, instead what they make are called Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) which can perform the job of a mine, but can't withstand the elements for decades like a properly encased munition mine can. Sure, many are triggered manually, but a pressure plate trigger can be made from the ringer out of a typical telephone - a piezo transducer, same thing used to measure earthquakes. Wire that through a relay to a diesel-nitrogen cocktail, and it'll take the treads off a tank no problem, but it couldn't last more than maybe 5 years before the batteries die.

Take a look at the tanks and APV junkyards in Afghanistan and try telling the repair crews there aren't any mines out there. And there are definitely booby traps in buildings where the bacteria could come in handy for sure.

Re:I don't think you comprehend the problem

[coolsnowmen]

Modern warfare by insurgents is ALREADY past mines, since they don't have an endless amount of money to spend - they already place explosives and use remote detonators when troops come by.

What you've said is not true. I said this to someone else, and at the risk of being modded redundant- BOTH triggers are used in Afghanistan against US troops. Remote detonation falls to the age-old electronic counter measure and it's best defense is a higher power jamer. This is compounded by the fact that the cheapest way to remote detonate is with cellphones, which only operate over a limited & known range of frequencies. Because of this flaw other types of triggers (force/pressure based) are still used (and because for pressure based explosions no enemy has to be physically present ['set it and forget it']).
(I work in land mine detection)

Great!

[Cornwallis]

Yet *another* source of light pollution.

Re:Great!

[newcastlejon]

Would you be willing to give an arm and a leg just to be able to go stargazing?

Re:This could make things worse...

[NeutronCowboy]

The biggest danger with mines is not that they explode - it's that no one really knows where the mines are, and that they are often right around civilian areas.

Your two scenarios would actually both be a vast improvement over the current situation.

In the first instance, you just have to get one little corner to detonate, and the entire field should go off. At that point, de-mining via artillery-shelling will actually work. If you meant to say that the mine fields are going to be much denser, great as well - you can actually employ large-scale de-mining equipment and have it be more cost-efficient than the hand-demining.

In the second instance, people sitting at a remote trigger actually make the mine safer: it means that there are less mines to go around (detonators are scarce, mines are not), someone knows where the mine is and it won't randomly go off when a kid decides to play catch in the field.

Legitimately good idea

[Draque]

Am I the only one here who is aware of how bad of a problem land mines are to civilians in many third world countries? The response here seems generally negative, but if this technology helps to diffuse old land mine fields, it would be wonderful. Just because it was planted in WW2 doesn't guarantee that it's become inactive or that it won't kill you now.

Re:Legitimately good idea

[KlaymenDK]

No, you're right -- it is a very good idea.

The problem is, all these critics are a teeny bit right when they say it's not going to work. Alas.

Not so very many years ago, there was an initiative to grow flowers whose petals turn red if they hit a mine. A lot more practical than bacteria, and it seemed to work very well, too -- but they got booted out of that African country they were testing in rather rough-handedly. It's a sad tale, but the fact is there are more warmongers than do-gooders and these things are immensely difficult to see to fruition.

I do wish them luck, though.

Re:The hills are alive...

[John Hasler]

> The hills are alive...

True. Topsoil is several percent bacteria by weight.

> What assurances do we have that the bacteria won't mutate, self-replicate, or
> turn against its master in the form of some horrendous new super-bug that
> makes the 20,000 land-mine casualties a year seem like a drop in a bucket?

None. And the sames goes for the millions of other species of bacteria that infest every square meter of the Earth's surface.

Minesweeping

[dlaudel]

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.

Re:too erasy in the daytimes..

[vlm]

They don't turn green, they glow green.

Kind of like the goo inside a green chemlight...

In the old days, if you wanted to do the area denial thing, you had to buy these expensive, heavy, hard to install landmines.

Then it was discovered you could scare the other guys away merely by using signs that say "landmine". In fact there is a UN standard / requirement for posting landmine signs around a minefield, scary white triangles, if I recall...

Now, technology marches on, and all you need is a big pack of green chemlights from walmart... crack them, drip the liquid in a field, and instant, cheap, area denial... Its also economic warfare, since mine field clearing is very expensive compared to buying a bunch of chemlights. Its also very demoralizing to the troops to know that glowing stuff might or might not be fake.

Re:Dangerous, Tedious, Expensive ?

[lbalbalba]

Why is this parent modded 'funny' ? In Eastern and African countries little kids *are* actually being used to detect mines: by blowing them up, and losing their arms, legs, or lives... I do not see what's so funny about that at all...

Re:Counter-measures

[cowscows]

I don't think this invention is being touted as a militarily useful tool. It's intended to help with the cleanup of the bazillions of mines that are still hidden in many many parts of the world where fighting has long since stopped, but the mines still remain behind.

If the US military needs a path through a suspected minefield, they're not going to spray this stuff, wait a few hours, then send some soldiers out to individually dig up all the green spots. They've got machines that are basically giant armored bulldozers that they can use to cut a straight path through. They also have trucks that basically fire a chain of explosives that clear out a straight path. But it's not feasible to use these techniques for large scale clean up because there's too much ground to cover, and it's a very destructive process.

So you're probably right that if someone was laying down a minefield this afternoon they could find some fairly easy ways to counter this bacteria. Fortunately, I don't think anyone is going to spend the time and expense to spray explosive residue around a bunch of mines that were buried in WW2

Re:False Sense of Security

[d474]

Exactly. They have the logic backwards. What if an area didn't get covered in spraying? So that area would be "dark" and they think it's safe? Yikes, that's a false negative. They need to reverse it to avoid that false negative.

If the bacteria only glow WITHOUT the presence of landmine. That way, at best you get false positives which is less dangerous than a false negative, in this situation.

Re:This could make things worse...

[Hognoxious]

In the first instance, you just have to get one little corner to detonate, and the entire field should go off.

Any other genius thoughts you'd like to share with us? Like how it's easy to sink a battleship, all you have to do is make a hole the right size in the right place.

Seriously, do you think military engineers haven't worked out how to set mines so that 300 mines cause more than one casualty? If one man set off an entire minefield it would hardly be worth getting your spade dirty planting them, would it? You'd do more harm to the enemy throwing the bastard things at them.

You're not an armchair general. You aren't even a moron. You're an armchair moron.