Official News - page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: THE BOMB-SNIFFING BEES

by Hazed

Forget sniffer dogs: if you want to use wildlife to check for bombs, you need a bee. Scientists at Los Alamos National laboratory in New Mexico have trained honeybees to "stick out their proboscis when they smell explosives in anything from cars and roadside bombs to belts similar to those used by suicide bombers".

The bomb-sniffing bees can recognize "substances ranging from dynamite and C-4 plastic explosives to the Howitzer propellant grains used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq", according to researchers.

And then what do they do? Sting the suspected terrorist to death? Do a waggle dance? No, they stick out their proboscis - as the researcher says, "You don't have to be an expert in animal behavior to understand it as there is no ambiguity."

The plan is apparently to deploy the bees in hand-held detectors the size of a shoe box. It's not clear whether this involves letting the bees out of the box to swarm around suspects sniffing at them, or whether they stay in the box to do their bomb detecting work. I am also not sure whether a box full of bees would have quite the deterrent effect of a large hound!

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