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Israeli Company Trains Security Mice
Israeli scientists have created an explosive detector using specially trained mice. Researchers claim the mice are more accurate than dogs or x-ray machines and best of all, they work for peanuts. From the article: "The device was tested last year on 1,000 shoppers in a Tel Aviv shopping mall when the mice successfully picked out 22 people carrying mock explosives."
I wonder if we could get Mickey to volunteer for this mission? I bet Itchy is one of their top trainers ;-)
Don't mice cause terror in a(n exaggeratedly) large segment of the population? I wonder how long it will take for the screams and panic to start once the mice run up to them.
Of course, this implies that mice are weapons of terror.
When the mice sense traces of drugs they run to a side chamber where the trigger an alarm, the magazine said.
Except, I don't think they get food as that would very likely introduce a conflict of interests ;)
Explosion detection is pretty cool, and useful I'm sure. But I was hoping for special ops commandos.
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This will only encourage those who blame Mossad for shark attacks and who detained a vulture for working for Mossad. perhaps they will be detaining mice now.
All dogs have similar sense of smell. If this were about the high cost of dogs, they would have been using Chihuahuas years ago.
To that end, they use large breed dogs for a reason - they're intimidating and can actually neutralize someone carrying a bomb. So unless these mice have really sharp teeth... =)
"... the mice successfully picked out 22 people carrying mock explosives". What use is that? Surely they would be rather better if they picked out people carrying real explosives. I can just see the terrorists plan now - 5 suicide bombers and 5 people carrying 'mock explosives' to fool the mice.
Against defending against Egyptians?
Just to be clear, I hope there is no war. Egypt needs to get their stuff together and settle down.
Thank goodness they're not a nuclear weapons holding country.
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This is similar to work that's been done with rodents being used to detect landmines. The animals themselves are light enough that they can stand on the mines without detonating them, and use their sense of smell to locate and alert the handler as to the location of the ordinance. Move over sniffer dogs, here come Africa’s rats
With a live mouse down your pants, you'll confess to anything!
The mice may work for penuts, but training them can't be free, and then assuming the mice can be trained in 3-4 months then you still have to deal with an average lifespan of only 2 years.
They found all 22 out of 1000 but the article doesn't tell us how many they declined to tell us how many false positives they got. Which, in my book, makes this story useless for science but serve a use as a PR use. "Those crazy zionists have mice that can detect bombs!"
Also the story doesn't mention anything about the process or methods. Are the mice running free? Trapped in a box? Is the mouse live or dead? Is it live or dead in a box? Does it use smell or does it turn colors?
Sure some of that is joking but this article really doesn't say much and leaves a lot to speculation.
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This reminds me of the recent story of executing a vulture for suspicious activity (hanging around the desert) and claiming it was an Israeli spy in training. Now with news that real mice are being trained for detecting explosives, I have to wonder how much mass hysteria we will see in the Middle East.....
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Are we really sure that it is not the mice doing the experimenting?
Language nit: the word you want is ordnance.
Rats are being used to detect landmines (and tuberculosis) in Africa. www.herorat.org
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Wow, I thought it was spelled the way the other poster spelled it. Thanks for the info, and yes, this is a completely offtopic post.
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Of having too much money for R&D. When you're doing stuff as ridiculous as DARPA, you may need to rethink your objectives. Really, how much money did it take to come up with this nonsense? There's no way a startup company just decided, "Mice? Mice!" unless there was prior research, and research is expensive. Also, their website isn't very well done. Couldn't really find any important information about them.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Mice are fast and hard to see, but I would think rats have a little more brain capacity.
I've got some pet rats and they seem to be a little less hyper and less brainless than the smaller rodents like mice, gerbils and hamsters.
Rodents certainly do have keener senses than humans, and less obvious than dogs.
Note that rats and mice are not kosher.
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Sounds like a bar bet... Bet you can't take a bunch of disease spreading rodents and teach them how to track down explosives...
for when it's time to retire a mouse that's losing its effectiveness due to old age: anyone know if rodents are kosher? :p
urzu 7 to backer echo, have found what appears to be a french fry in the passenger lounge.
baker echo: ignore it, you are supposed to search out a drug shipment.
urzu 7: it appears to have catsup on it.
baker echo: I don't care. Look for the drug shipment.
urzu 6: yes, it appears to be catsup.
urzu 7: leave my evidence alone.
urzu 6: this is big enough for the both of us.
baker echo: drugs! drugs! find the damn drugs! leave the damn french fry alone.
urzu 5: definately catsup.
urzu 7: what are you doing here urzu 5?
urzu 6: yea, don't snatch our evidence.
urzu 7: MY evidence.
urzu 5: ummm. what evidence.
urzu 6: that was ours!
urzu 7: Mine!
baker echo: Drugs! Drugs! Drugs!
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...with these motherfucking snakes on these motherfucking planes.
Mice scare people. If you release them into a baggage claim area to check for bombs, wouldn't you start a stampede of people and all-around terror?
If I tried this at an airport with a box of mice, I'd get arrested. If the TSA or Israel's equivalent tries it, I suppose it would be legal because of their power?
(I'm half joking, I don't think they'd just release mice into a crowd without warning)
Someone's stolen the sense of humour from /.
We have a rat infestation problem in Sydney at the moment. Can we train them to detect bombs and sell at a mark-up?
TFA says they react to explosives to "escape" like they would from a cat... so what about people who own a lot of cats?
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animals anyway.
I doubt the public would be any more alarmed at the thought of having a cute small trained rat go through their clothes and luggage or some ugly full-sized trained troglodyte pawing at them.
You put a little blue and gold uniform on 'em, add a little cap, and you'll have people lining up(, and enjoying it.)
Its called Disneyfication.
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This will only encourage those who blame Mossad for shark attacks
Confusing "Jaws" with Jews and all...
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Depending on what, if any, differences there are in genetic, dietary, and cultural/grooming habits, that might actually be pretty doable...
For an animal able to detect trace quantities of explosives, a population-level difference in dietary spice preferences, shampoo brands, or similar such trivial-but-chemically-distinguishable matters would be cake.(During Ramadan late afternoons, you could probably just use ketone-sniffing mice. Fasting makes humans smell different...)
It wouldn't do much about genetically well mixed and/or culturally highly assimilated cases; but those are probably a bit tricky to detect visually, as well...