Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Sniffer Bees Trained to hunt down Terrorists

Sniffer bees are the new weapon in the war on terror

Meet the latest weapon in the war on terror - the humble honey bee.

Sniffer bees are the new weapon in the war on terror

Specially trained sniffer honey bees may be coming to an airport near you soon, thanks to a successful new prototype that is about the size of a handheld vacuum cleaner. The Vasor136, developed by Hertfordshire Company Inscentinel, and partially funded by the Home Office OSCT (Office for Security and Counter Terrorism), is creating a buzz after successful tests with the government.

Sniffer bees are the new weapon in the war on terror

Training the bees is simply a matter of bribing them with sugary treats. Mathilde Briens, Head of R&D at Inscentinel, explains: "It all revolves around training and reward, a classical Pavlovian conditioning of the honeybees. We expose the bees to the odour, say the smell of TNT explosive, for a few seconds and simultaneously give the bees a sugar syrup reward. After 4 or 5 exposures the bees associate the odour with the reward..."

The device holds six cassettes of six bees. The Female Worker bees are kept in optimum conditions in a filtered airstream until they reach the environment to be tested, e.g. near a suspected car bomb, or luggage at Heathrow


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