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!"

Comments

Boom

[Niris]

Best minesweeper mod ever.

Re:Boom

[kermidge]

"In most places in the US you can find at *least* a tiny studio apartment in a non-shithole neighborhood for under $300", et cetera.

I don't know where you live or what your latest explorations into rentals have shown you. I live in a small (50-55k) city in the Midwest and pay $473 for ~ 145 sq. ft. apartment partitioned from a house built in the 1880s in a decidedly non-genteel block near "downtown" where I have walking access to food. In local terms, I've got a good deal - an "affordable" price (about 2/3 of my Social Security), decent landlord, heat and electric included, nearby "amenities."

Please show me your menu for one for a month on $100. Nothing wrong with beans and rice, and the local mercado has good prices on chicken and veggies. My food stamps allow about $6.50/day, so it's doable, but I'd still like to see your menu based on half that.

Where will I put paying roommates, presuming such can be found? Fuck, my usable living area is comparable to a jail cell. I hope that I can save enough in a year buy the stuff to loft the bed so's to have room for the computer table and a chair and a lamp. How long at what savings per month to move to a cheaper location? Chances are I'll be long dead ere then.

Many things can theoretically be done. If you've got superior info and know-how, I'd be happy to be the recipient. My willingness and ability, medical matters aside, to deal with what level of stinting to get to greener grass whilst still alive, and, one hopes, the ability to enjoy such, is open for consideration. YMMV.

Don't need the DoD, already being done

[OnceWas]

It's not crazy, and it's already being done, by organization like HeroRATs - http://www.apopo.org/cms.php?cmsid=107. They train African giant pouched rats to detect mines. They're also using them to detect tuberculosis, in human spit. Yuck, but way cool.

Nothing New

[Nethemas the Great]

Nothing new They've been using rats for landmine detection in Africa for quite some time now.

Ancient Joke Alert

[Anonymous Coward]

What goes peck-peck-bang?

A chicken in a minefield!

Sorry, it just seemed appropriate...

odor signatures

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Mines aren't the worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Rats can be trained very easily. They're bright enough to learn fast and yet dumb enough to walk into a minefield for us.

Re:Those poor rats

[hyades1]

Initially, they tried using conservatives, but it was just too hard to get one near a conflict zone.