Rats

[indago]

Journalist Denis Gray wrote for The Associated Press 24 February 2016:
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It's been a busy morning for Cletus, Meynard, Victoria and others of their furry band. Tiny noses and long whiskers twitching, they've scurried and sniffed their way across 775 square meters (8,300 square feet) of fields to eliminate a scourge that has killed thousands of Cambodians: land mines. ...intelligent, surprisingly adorable creatures with some of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom. Sent from Africa, where they successfully cleared minefields in Mozambique and Angola, they began the same task in northwestern Cambodia early this month and have already scored tangible results. ...Merry and Meynard were completing three hours of effort as a midday sun beat down on the parched earth. The duo had earlier nosed in on an explosive, halting just above it and scratching the ground - the learned response when a rodent detects TNT inside a land mine. A deminer with a detector followed and the mine was dug up and detonated.

...Each rat can clear an area of 200 square meters (2,150 square feet) in 20 minutes, something a technician with a mine detector would take 1 to 4 days to complete. Their sense of smell is so keen that in Africa they are also used to detect tuberculosis in human sputum samples at a rate much faster than the standard laboratory method.
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article (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CAMBODIA_HERO_RATS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-24-03-35-17)

[revelarts]

Journalist Denis Gray wrote for The Associated Press 24 February 2016:
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It's been a busy morning for Cletus, Meynard, Victoria and others of their furry band. Tiny noses and long whiskers twitching, they've scurried and sniffed their way across 775 square meters (8,300 square feet) of fields to eliminate a scourge that has killed thousands of Cambodians: land mines. ...intelligent, surprisingly adorable creatures with some of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom. Sent from Africa, where they successfully cleared minefields in Mozambique and Angola, they began the same task in northwestern Cambodia early this month and have already scored tangible results. ...Merry and Meynard were completing three hours of effort as a midday sun beat down on the parched earth. The duo had earlier nosed in on an explosive, halting just above it and scratching the ground - the learned response when a rodent detects TNT inside a land mine. A deminer with a detector followed and the mine was dug up and detonated.

...Each rat can clear an area of 200 square meters (2,150 square feet) in 20 minutes, something a technician with a mine detector would take 1 to 4 days to complete. Their sense of smell is so keen that in Africa they are also used to detect tuberculosis in human sputum samples at a rate much faster than the standard laboratory method.
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article (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CAMBODIA_HERO_RATS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-24-03-35-17)


Yep i heard about this, and they been tested for use in airports as baggage and people sniffers instead of the x-rays etc., and tested in action and work better.
It's one way i've suggest we handle baggage and people instead of the intrusive X-rays, scans, pat downs and questions.
if the rats or mice don't alert then people aren't "suspicious" bombers.

they can also alert for drugs.
If the war on drugs was serious that is.
or the war on "terror" for that matter.