Slashdot Mirror
Trained Rats Map Minefields With GPS
An anonymous reader writes "Believe it or not, but the Department of Defense is paying psychologists to train rats to find mines and circle around them. By attaching little GPS backpacks and supplying a laptop with software that looks for the 'circling around' signature, the DOD hopes its project will allow the release of platoons of rats near suspected minefields so that the laptop software creates a detailed map of where all the mines are located automatically. Not sure if they plan on picking up the rats afterward, but they do assure us that the rats are too lightweight to set off the mines!"
Best minesweeper mod ever.
I'd love to see those fat little fuckers get blown up to pieces.
Maybe the DoD can come take some from the subway?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
that's the other part of the program: 'organic mine removal drones'.
What goes peck-peck-bang?
A chicken in a minefield!
Sorry, it just seemed appropriate...
TFA says they train the rat to recognize the odor of the explosives in the soil. Wouldn't it be easy to enclose the explosive in a hermetically sealed wrapper to keep any such odor in the mine?
Also, wouldn't it be better to train lawyers for this? We have more of them than rats, and they're not as cute and the soldiers will become less attached to them, in case they do set off some of the mines.
Rats can be trained very easily. They're bright enough to learn fast and yet dumb enough to walk into a minefield for us.
Initially, they tried using conservatives, but it was just too hard to get one near a conflict zone.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.