Scientists recruit wasps for war on terror

[deadparrot]

Scientists at a Georgia laboratory have developed what could be a low-tech, low-cost weapon in the war on terrorism: trained wasps.

The tiny, non-stinging wasps can check for hidden explosives at airports and monitor for toxins in subway tunnels.

"You can rear them by the thousands, and you can train them within a matter of minutes," says Joe Lewis, a U.S. Agriculture Department entomologist. "This is just the very tip of the iceberg of a very new resource."

Lewis and others at the University of Georgia-Tifton Campus developed a handheld "Wasp Hound" to contain the wasps while they sniff out chemicals and other substances.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/scientistsrecruitwaspsforwaronterror

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. I Volunteer

This Mayflower WASP offers herself for love of country.

[Jed Dilligan]

2. Damn your pre-emptive strike!

Right when I was about to make a crack about the Bush twins.

[Ilsa]

5. I bet those two wasps know how to sniff out some

chemicals as well.

[Jed Dilligan]

12. LOL

:rofl:

[YOY]

3. I'm afraid they need the chicken hawking trustfund kind more...n/t

[Judi Lynn]

9. Truly! Republican WASPS are actually chickenhawks. n/t

[SomewhereOutThere424]

4. Lovely

Weren't happy ruining the youth of the country by dumbing down education for the last 30 years, had to go and turn every kind of animal to warfare and bigoted tools too. If people are so capable of training and working with wasps they can trust they'd sniff out bombs, here's an idea, why not find meaningful tasks for them?

It's amazing how humanity entwines such a melodic stream of intelligence and stupidity.

[MrPrax]

6. Maybe they could train the wasps..

to find the dolphins the Navy is missing...


Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina


It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

More at the Guardian

Glad they're not dogs that shoot killer bees out of their mouth...

[Gman]

7. Well I'm glad to hear the fundies are doing their part for the war effort

about time! ;)

[uppityperson]

8. Reminds me of the drug trained gerbils

only problems were that each gerbil could be trained to detect only 1 thing, it took a while to train them and they didn't live long. Other than that, it worked fine. I have this mental image of the "gerbil booth" at airports, where they shut you in, let 273407 gerbils out to run all over you.

[dflprincess]

10. So how do these wasps "alert" when they find something?

And what's going to happen to the dogs if their jobs get outsourced?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. There's always Home Depot

[TheGunslinger]

13. Stingers to combat the Stingers sold to bin Laden?

;)