Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Glowing Bacteria Detect Buried Landmines (sciencemag.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the pro-biotics dept.

sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: More than 100 million landmines lay hidden in the ground around the world, but glowing bacteria may help us find them, according to a new study. The approach relies on small quantities of vapor released from the common explosive TNT. Previously, researchers engineered E. coli to glow green upon detection of DNT, a byproduct of TNT. In a study published in Nature Biotechnology today, the same team reports on a small field test with mines buried in sand and soil, whose triggering mechanisms were removed. The scientists loaded about 100,000 DNT-detecting bacterial cells into a single bead made of polymers derived from seaweed and sprinkled these beads over the landmine site at night. Twenty-four hours later, they used a laser to remotely detect and quantify fluorescing bacteria from 20 meters away, mapping the location of the landmines.

37 comments

  1. Overly High-Tech Solution by Jzanu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In the regions where land mines are buried, knowing the exact area or field where the mines are is the biggest problem. Because of the unknown area, there is no way to apply this in sprinking the bacteria except with a crop duster, and then it is useless when there is any overgrowth. Then the whole "use a laser" bit limits this to formerly advanced economies e.g. the balkan nations, not the areas where there are major issues Thailand, Myanmar, etc.

    1. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by Jzanu · · Score: 3, Informative

      In the regions where land mines are buried, knowing the exact area or field where the mines are is the biggest problem. Because of the unknown area, there is no way to apply this in sprinking the bacteria except with a crop duster, and then it is useless when there is any overgrowth. Then the whole "use a laser" bit limits this to formerly advanced economies e.g. the balkan nations, not the areas where there are major issues Thailand, Myanmar, etc.

      For background read this and this. Notice the different dates on these articles and that gives some idea of the difficulty in actually finding and removing these immoral weapons.

    2. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by Gryle · · Score: 1

      No one is claiming it's a magic-bullet (sort-of pun not intended), but it's one more tool in the tool kit. Isn't that a good thing?

      --
      Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
    3. Re: Overly High-Tech Solution by Entrope · · Score: 4, Informative

      The people who placed the mines were mostly not idiots. Land mines are usually placed on paths and roads, or in fields around turns out villages, because those are the most effective places to either deny access to a place or to channel attackers into kill zones.

      Land mine fields are also usually known to the local population -- someone's uncle, sister, or elephant has often been killed or lost a limb, and people know they should stay clear; they just can't afford to leave that field fallow or to get water somewhere else or whatever. But the locals usually have no better tools to find or remove land mines than probes (e.g. bayonets) and their own ingenuity, while land mines are often equipped with counter-tamper measures.

      So just about any technology is too high-tech or too expensive for the local populace to use. However, governments issue grants to non-government organizations (NGOs) that exist solely to help remove land mines. Those NGOs have equipment and expertise that the locals could not afford for themselves. In the case of this approach, they would probably use a small done to disperse the bacteria, and they could easily afford a laser scanning device.

      (My last job was writing software for ground-penetrating radar for land mine and IED detection. The US Army funded both systems that would mount on military vehicles, and separate systems on vehicles aimed at "humanitarian demining" -- the overall term for reclaiming land mine fields for civilian use. The GPR sensors and detection algorithms were the same as what was used on the military systems -- although usually operating with higher probability of detection and thus higher false alarm rate -- but the requirements for operating environment, advance rate, etc. were looser, so it was practical to use lower cost/COTS components for the rest of the system. The US government funded my employer so that the demining NGOs could use the same tech as the military.)

    4. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      An Afghan Designer and His Life-Saving Creation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    5. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2

      >these immoral weapons.

      Mines around a perimeter to deter intrusion, for instance... there's nothing any more wrong with that than shooting someone trying to rush your position. Mines in a field to stop farming to cut off the enemy's food supply... that's war.

      Morality comes from the person who decided where the mines should be deployed, the person who didn't keep records on that deployment, and from the military (all the way up their chain of command) that didn't remove them after the conflict ended.

    6. Re: Overly High-Tech Solution by Jzanu · · Score: 0

      Mines are indiscriminate in targeting children, and last for decades such that local economies are destroyed. That makes them immoral weapons and is why they are banned by mutual agreement of most countries.

    7. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by Notabadguy · · Score: 1

      In the regions where land mines are buried, knowing the exact area or field where the mines are is the biggest problem. Because of the unknown area, there is no way to apply this in sprinking the bacteria except with a crop duster, and then it is useless when there is any overgrowth.

      Then the whole "use a laser" bit limits this to formerly advanced economies e.g. the balkan nations, not the areas where there are major issues Thailand, Myanmar, etc.

      What's wrong with crop-testing broad swathes of land with glowing e-coli?

    8. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's great until you have to walk in to the mine field to retrieve it.

    9. Re:Overly High-Tech Solution by Jzanu · · Score: 1

      There are these things called trees, especially in these places called jungles, which make that process itself impossible.

  2. FIRST POST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.

  3. Re:Dims lost in Kansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you are a retard

  4. Re: Brilliant!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Infrared camera works great for this if within 12 - 24 hours of the plop.

  5. Re:Dims lost in Kansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you are a retard

    Why do you think he's a Democrat?

  6. Re: Brilliant!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Infrared camera works great for this if within 12 - 24 hours of the plop.

    24 hours?!?!?!

    What the fuck are you feeding your dog?

  7. Re: Brilliant!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    pure protein none of that cuckold carb shit

  8. Re: Brilliant!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sprinkle lime one it it will eat through no need to find when you can neutralize. just kinding though lime would be very bad for any animal or anything biological for that mater.

  9. Grammar nazi... by rgbatduke · · Score: 0

    100 million landmines LIE hidden, dammit!

    --
    Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    1. Re:Grammar nazi... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      KABOOM! Boy you stepped on it...

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  10. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because sprinkling modified bacteria all over can't hurt anything....right?

    1. Re: yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Lefties prefer their mine fields GMO-free.

  11. Mine Sweeping by Gornkleschnitzer · · Score: 1

    Strange that they need such advanced technology when they could just dig up small sections of soil and read the big numbers that appear in it.

    1. Re:Mine Sweeping by laurencetux · · Score: 1

      that only works if you have a bunch of minions to "start over" with.

      Hey SlashMind could one of y'all invent a device that can scramble a patch of ground 10 feet deep that could be used to rip the mines apart??

      (note im looking for a method that does not involve sticking paws or chunks of material into said ground with say a range of 20 meters)

  12. Re:Dims lost in Kansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Swish! Good one.... 3 points..

  13. Oh Lordy... by judoguy · · Score: 1

    Soon the TSA will want to smear e-coli on our clothes and luggage. Eww!

    --
    Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
  14. Yes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's detect hidden land mines in fields by spraying mass amounts of e-coli in the air. What could possibly go wrong?

  15. Re:Dims lost in Kansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, when all else fails (Muslim ban, Healthcare bill, etc.), you can always resort to childish name-calling.

  16. Re:Dims lost in Kansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And no one ever expected him to win. But losing by only 7 points, you know the R's are worried, especially if Brownback keeps driving the state economy into the ground.

  17. Stop on green? by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    I'm new to this whole landmine detection thing, but perhaps red would have been a better choice of color than green.

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere