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November 29, 2006
Bee-utiful Thing
by Tina Grazier
Looks like the folks at the Los Alamos Lab are producing more than scandal these days and that's a bee-utiful thing. A report out of Reuters found describes the new weapon:
Researchers...said they trained honeybees to stick out their proboscis -- the tube they use to feed on nectar -- when they smell explosives in anything from cars and roadside bombs to belts similar to those used by suicide bombers... By exposing the insects to the odor of explosives followed by a sugar water reward, researchers said they trained bees to recognize substances ranging from dynamite and C-4 plastic explosives to the Howitzer propellant grains used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
Apparently wasps have been trained to do this work but they just didn't have the same professional stature as the bees.
Meanwhile the Jerusalem Post reports similar work of a "nano" variety:
- Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets...The flying robot, nicknamed the 'bionic hornet', would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers...
And that's the latest buzz on weapons technology.
Posted by Post Scripts at November 29, 2006 09:09 AM