Unexploded landmines still remain a huge problem the world over. What is more, landmine clearance is an expensive business. One man has found a potential solution, however.
All hail the HeroRAT.
posted by pashdown
on Dec 13, 2009 -
22 comments
Miss Landmine:
We are currently preparing the live Miss Landmine Angola 2008 pageant in close collaboration with the Angolan government (CNIDAH) and supported by the European Union. The crowning of the world's first Miss Landmine will be taking place in Luanda, Angola on April 4th, 2008, the UN International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action. Stay tuned! The web voting for Miss Landmine Angola is open until April 3, 2008. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Dec 12, 2007 -
17 comments
Totally rad
Frontline video about
Hero Rats who sniff out unexploded land mines in rural Tanzania. Not only a great idea, but this story had me on the edge of my seat: are the rats on a suicide mission or not?
posted by dydecker
on Jun 29, 2007 -
17 comments
bomb sniffing flowers. Danish, Canadian and U.S. scientists are closing in on a genetically engineered plant that will send up a floral signal: “DANGER—land mines below."
Scientists in Denmark have been tinkering with
Arabidopsis thaliana [...] to produce a plant [that] will turn a warning red whenever close to a land mine.” Arabidopsis can be genetically sensitized to the nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) that leaches from buried explosives.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht
on May 15, 2006 -
29 comments
Decades of dumping chemical arms leave a risky legacy The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.
These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states - six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.
posted by notmtwain
on Nov 4, 2005 -
33 comments
Rats are being trained to detect buried land mines in Africa.
Giant African pouched rats! Mine-detecting is definitely not a suicide mission, the rats are
trained with care and attention and are expected to give about eight years of service. They can also detect
tuberculosis. And so
cute! Here's a page on keeping them as
pets (but you'd need a spare room and a nocturnal lifestyle.)
posted by aeschenkarnos
on Dec 3, 2004 -
17 comments
According to UPI, the United States has been offered by coalition partner Morocco its
tide-turning force of 2,000 monkeys trained to detonate land mines. It wouldn't be so unbelievable if the U.S. wasn't already
training dolphins and sea lions to do the same. Considering the carnage already happening to humans in Iraq, this news doesn't inspire thoughts of
happy endings for our animal friends.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Mar 27, 2003 -
28 comments
The Self-Healing Minefield From the current Village Voice: "Utilizing commercial off-the-shelf computer chips and 'healing' software, the networked minefield detects rude attempts to clear it, deduces which parts of itself have been removed, and signals its remaining munitions to close the hole using best-fit mathematics."
Bonus ubertasteless Flash animation courtesy of DARPA
here. Color me fascinated and repulsed in equal measure.
posted by Armitage Shanks
on Nov 27, 2002 -
40 comments
Animals thought extinct found in remote Cambodian jungle: British scientists have found a wilderness in the Cardamom region of Cambodia where exotic species, some though to be
extinct, have been found. These include the Siamese
crocodile, the wolf snake (a new species so named because of
its dog-like fangs), large populations of tigers and Asian
elephants, and the gower, a forest cow. Ironically, the habitat was protected from significant human
intrusion because it was a longtime Khmer Rouge stronghold
and also because routes lead to and from it are landmined.
posted by jhiggy
on Oct 5, 2000 -
6 comments
Clearing landmines with a click It costs $3 to put a landmine in the ground and $1000 to pull it out. Along the same lines as The Hunger Site, head over to this site and help make war-torn areas safe again for the people living there.
posted by Calebos
on Jun 16, 2000 -
4 comments
