Genetically modified sappers never make a mistake
Americans are mobilizing supermys into the army
It turned out that the sense of smell of rodents, genetically modified with the help of scientists, becomes 500 times more sensitive to the smell of explosives. More precisely, the mice had increased sensitivity to the relatively safe dinitrotoluene (DNT), a compound almost identical to trinitrotoluene (TNT), the most common explosive used in landmines.
According to the researchers, the gray "soldiers" have already performed well in the laboratory, but it will take at least another five years of experiments to allow them into the war zone.
What is the scheme of the tiny "sappers"? Rodents are placed under the skin of microprocessors that instantly transmit information to military computers as soon as the mouse "smells" explosives, writes telegraph.co.uk ('Superhero' mice could be used by armed forces to sniff out landmines). The advantage of "supermys" is that, thanks to their tiny weight, even if they step, they will not be able to detonate a mine, but they will always be able to smell it and fix it!
And after that, the sappers go and neutralize all the mines found, without putting their lives in danger at all.
By the way, earlier the Belgian military successfully used African rats for these purposes. The effectiveness turned out to be amazing: only two rodents "cleaned" a mined field with an area of 300 square meters. m in two hours, but the sapper unit usually spent two days on the same operation.
"Unlike rats, mice are much easier to genetically "program" for the smell of explosives," explained Dr. Charlotte D'Hulst from the City University of New York. – In addition, I will name one more absolute advantage of sapper mice: if it takes nine months to train people, then rodents of "our" strain can start working immediately, and it is much cheaper to keep them."
It remains to add that mice detect explosives with the help of several thousand nerves located in the nose and whose olfactory abilities have been enhanced thanks to the efforts of scientists.
(The abstracts of the report Scientists Developing Mice Able to Detect Hidden Landmines are published in a thematic collection on the website of the Society for Neuroscience – VM.)
By the way, other animals also regularly serve in the army. In particular, not so long ago "Bagnet" wrote that Ukraine is restoring training programs for combat dolphins.
(The kamikaze dolphin in the picture is American, but his and mine's colors are very Ukrainian – VM:)
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.10.2012