Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Police Recruit Rats To Sniff Out Crime
An anonymous reader writes "Ratting someone out' just became much more literal. Dutch police are using trained rats to help keep the streets clean. 'Detective Derrick and his rat partners cost just £8 each and are capable of being trained to identify an impressive range of odors—including drugs and explosives—within ten to 15 days. In contrast, a police dog costs thousands of pounds and requires a minimum training period of eight months. The training procedure is straightforward: the rats are kept in a cage with four metal tea strainers attached inside, one of which contains gunpowder. When the rat recognizes the smell, it is rewarded with a "click" and a small treat. Eventually the rat will learn to move towards the smell instantly. In a demonstration it takes Derrick just two seconds to locate the offending odor."
https://twitter.com/R_Roddy_Piper/status/383846281036058624
"don't speak much about it. but They Live is a documentary! Scientist, refer to this movie! They Live"
I can see an animal arms race there.
Commence rat jokes.
Rats can also be trained to detect mines
that's a cost effective way. nice!
The rats do not go on scene. They are only used in the "lab", which means whatever they are used on will have to be brought to them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_(TV_series)
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I find it remarkable and interesting that we still can't or at least not easily produce eith sensors the sniffing capabilities of these critters.
"Detective Derrick and his rat partners cost just £8 each"
I vote for less rats and more Derricks! So cheap
In Sovjet Netherlands, Rat smells you!!!
Read the article, they are being used to sense gunpowder, not drugs. For once I actually think the police has got one hell of a new co-worker, the lady that noticed the mine-sniffing rats from the army could also be used in the police force to quickly get an idea if someone had fired a gun or not. I am sure there will still be lab-tests, but at least they can go on with their investigation based on a pretty acurate source.
... more like pressganged.
The same thing we do every night pinky... sniff for coke and explosives!
Cut the manager-speak. "Can be trained".
In the Netherlands rats (and dogs) as well as their training are paid in Euros, not Pounds...
Sig?
They must be Rattus Norvegicus.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
In africa they are now running a project to train rats to screen people for tuberculosis infection. Higher accuracy and roughtly 100 times faster than a doctor.
Presumably rats can be trained to sniff for other substances, as well. It's an open question whether each rat could be trained to detect more than one substance, or detectives would have to carry around a golf bag of rats, each wearing a little jacket labeled with what substance it can sniff. Still, better to carry a golf bag of rats than a golf bag of German shepherds!
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Are rats reliable? What is the rate of false positives?
The training procedure is straightforward: the rats are kept in a cage with four metal tea strainers attached inside, one of which contains gunpowder. When the rat recognizes the smell, it is rewarded with a "click" and a small treat.
When the wrong one is identified, the gunpowder is ignited. Then training begins for the next rat.
Even dogs are getting outsourced now. :(
First of all, what a great name for a band!
Second, Derrick *and* his rats cost eight pounds each? "Okay, I'll take two Derricks and five rats. Fifty-six pounds? Great!"
...a form of nepotism?
Time for another depopulation of Europe?
This reminds me of a fairy tale. Now what was the moral of the tale again? Ahh yes, I remember...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
bees?
So you are writing on an American site about Dutch police, and give the amounts in english pounds?
In liberal Netherlands, the rat smells you!
Since rats do not learn human social cues readily, it would be difficult for anyone to teach it to "hit" on a person or vehicle they want to search.
This offers a modest resistance to misuse (compared to police dogs).
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
But first they'll need to train the sniffer rats to move when their handler coughs and whenever they see a black person. "The rat smelled drugs, we're going to have to search you!"
Spice weasels.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Presumably rats can be trained to sniff for other substances, as well. It's an open question whether each rat could be trained to detect more than one substance, or detectives would have to carry around a golf bag of rats, each wearing a little jacket labeled with what substance it can sniff. Still, better to carry a golf bag of rats than a golf bag of German shepherds!
There's just one kind of rat, trained to smell brown people. It's so when they get searched they can blame the rat. K9 units will falsely alert on a clean object if the guide was told there was an object to be found, to say nothing of hand signals.
Dogs are mostly interested in being good pack animals and pleasing the alpha. When your handler is pleased by getting to search vehicles/bags/etc...
I'm almost completely convinced that police dogs are merely a slight sophistication of "Hey look, *smash*, your taillight is out."
Do rats have such social capabilities?
Please help metamoderate.
Most adorable uniform ever.
Is that a single, double or triple base gunpowder? Or black powder? be embarrassing to have the rats trained to find what the bad guy's aren't using in their pipe bomb.