See also
New bomb disposal team - with a sting in the tail
Trained bees will sniff out explosives
Adam Docherty - Sunday Post
Honey bees trained to sniff out explosives could be the latest weapon in the war against terror.
Scientists have produced a successful prototype 'bee sniffer box' the size of a handheld vacuum cleaner.
The bees are restrained within individual holders, designed to prevent stings, inside the black box detector. The Vasor136 was developed by Inscentinel, a small company in Hertfordshire.
Buzz
It was partially funded by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism - a branch of the Home Office. Now it's creating a buzz after successful tests by American scientists.
The device uses the bees' amazing sense of smell. They're trained to recognise an aroma, such as explosives, and associate it with food reward.
Honey bees are inexpensive, quick to train - a few minutes per bee - and can detect extremely small amounts of a given odour.
Last year Inscentinel took their idea to America's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, which in turn asked the Los Alamos National Laboratory to test the idea.
The lab reckons the sniffer bees could be a successful investment.
| Inscentinel's bee sniffer box. Each box contains 36 bees and can be used by any operator. The insects are gently held in holders in six cassettes. On the press of a button the bees are exposed to a sample of air. If it contains the substance they are trained to detect, they stick their tongue out in expectation of food. The individual response of all 36 bees is recorded and translated into a simple result and shown on a PDA screen display. A scientist writes: Will police dogs face unemployment?. I doubt it. The research project sounds impractical, and likely improbable as things with a biological component are very variable. For example if the bees are returned after 1 or 2 days to the hive how are they going to cope with weekends and winters will be no-go time periods. Perhaps terrorists will bear this in mind. |
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Prototype
Inscentinel's business development manager Harry Townsend said, "We have developed working prototypes, but they're not deployable yet.
"We're looking to work with industrial partners to develop the full business potential."
Inscentinel says there are a number of practical applications, including drug detection, diagnosis of TB and food spoilage, although the anti-terror potential is their first priority.
The bees are unharmed during their sniffing tasks and are comfortable throughout - only healthy bees work effectively.
After their working shift they are returned to their hive where they are integrated back into the colony.
After training, honey bees can remember smells for 72 hours or more, but Inscentinel's bees are usually only used for one to two days before being returned to the hive.
One hive can contain around 60,000 bees and the queen can lay up to 2000 eggs a day, producing a steady supply of bees to be trained for detection purposes.
Honey bee workers live for four to six weeks. For the last three weeks they become foragers, collecting pollen and nectar from flowers. Inscentinel uses foragers because they are easy to collect from the entrance of the hive, and they are actively using their smelling abilities to seek out flowers.
Meanwhile, the Home Office said raising the level of the UK's terror threat from substantial to severe - meaning an attack is 'highly likely' - would not cause 'any discernable difference' for members of the public taking flights or going about their normal business.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Scottish ministers had no reason to believe the increased threat related to Scotland specifically.
He said, "Ministers have been fully briefed and the Scottish Government will continue to work closely with the Home Office, the police and other agencies.
"Police chief constables across Scotland will be taking the necessary steps and following the normal protocols in the interests of public safety.
"Although we have no reason to believe this threat increase relates to Scotland specifically, I would urge the public to remain extremely vigilant and report anything suspicious immediately."
Is there a danger of people being stung using a bee based system?
Honeybees are restrained within individual holders throughout their sniffing duty, which are designed to prevent stings. During use they are held within a "black box" detector so there is no contact at all with the bees.
Are the bees harmed by the process?
Bees are unharmed during their sniffing tasks and are comfortable throughout - only healthy bees work effectively. After their working shift the bees are returned to their hive where they live out the rest of their lives and are integrated back into the colony.
How long do bees remember the odour to which they've been trained?
After training, honeybees can remember odours for 72 hours or more, but our bees are usually only used for one to two days before being returned to the hive.
How many bees are in a hive?
One hive can contain around 60,000 bees. The majority of these are female worker bees, but there will also be some male drones depending on the time of year, and one queen. The queen bee is able to lay up to 2,000 eggs per day, producing a steady supply of bees to be trained for detection purposes.
How long do worker bees live for?
Honeybee workers live for four to six weeks. For the first three weeks of their lives they remain inside the hive carrying out duties such as feeding larvae and making beeswax. For the last three weeks of their lives they become foragers, collecting pollen and nectar from flowers outside the hive. We use honeybees that are foragers since they are easy to collect from the entrance of the hive, and they are actively using their olfactory capabilites to seek out flowers.
Where do you get bees from in the winter?
During winter, when the days become colder and shorter, honeybees in outside colonies remain within the hive feeding on stored honey. The number of individuals in the hive and the production of young is reduced. To continue our research and sensor work, we have developed a system to produce bees indoors throughout the winter. Colonies are kept in special "flight rooms" where the temperature is warm and long days are created using artificial lighting. The bees are able to fly in these rooms and are provided with pollen and sugar syrup on which to forage.
Scotland's sugar solution for bees
How predicted empty hives would mean end of the world
Police arrest MD of dowsing-rod 'bomb detector' firm
Sold 'magic' bomb wands to Iraqi gov for $56,000 each
Lewis Page - The Register
A British businessman who has made millions selling dowsing-rod "explosives detectors" to the Iraqi security forces has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
The Times reports that Jim McCormick, 53, a former Merseyside police officer who is nowadays managing director of detector-maker ATSC (UK) Ltd, was arrested and questioned by Avon and Somerset detectives, following widespread claims that his company's products do not work. He is currently free on bail pending further enquiries.
ATSC's ADE "Advanced Detection Equipment" is said by its makers to be able to detect "all known drug and explosive based substances", using "non-vapour" methods. A simple plastic holder is fitted with a special piece of cardboard which has been prepared using "the proprietary process of electrostatic matching of the ionic charge and structure of the substance" to be detected. There is no power source or electronics - the device is said to be "charged" by the body of the user.
Attached to the holder is a metal wand which the user holds at right angles to his or her body. The wand is said to drift in the direction of any explosive, drug or whatever else the cardboard insert has been "electrostatically matched" to - even contraband ivory or truffles - at ranges of up to 1km.
The Iraqi government has bought 1,500 ADEs from ATSC for a total of $85m. McCormick told the Times that he'd provided the ADE-651s for no less than $8,000 each - some $12m. The other $73m apparently went on training and "middlemen", the paper said.
Major General Jehad al-Jabiri of the Iraqi interior ministry insisted last year that he really believes in the ADE.
"Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs," he told the New York Times last year. He even went so far as to "demonstrate" that it worked by placing a grenade and a submachinegun in his office (in plain sight) and having one of his policemen "detect" them with the ADE. When a reporter couldn't get the dowsing rod to work, the general blithely stated:
"You need more training."
Norway Time Hole “Leak” Plunges Northern Hemisphere Into Chaos
Pakistan Times
Russian
scientists are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the
high-energy beam fired into the upper heavens from the United States
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) radar facility
in Ramfjordmoen, Norway this past month has resulted in a “catastrophic
puncturing” of our Plant’s thermosphere thus allowing into the
troposphere an “unimpeded thermal inversion” of the exosphere,
which is the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere.To the West’s firing of this ‘quantum’ high-energy beam we had previously reported on in our December 10, 2009 report titled “Attack On Gods ‘Heaven’ Lights Up Norwegian Sky”.
To how catastrophic for our Planet this massive thermal inversion has been Anthony Nunan, an assistant general manager for risk management at Mitsubishi Corporation in Tokyo, is reporting today that the entire Northern Hemisphere is in winter chaos, with the greatest danger from this unprecedented Global event being the destruction of billions of dollars worth of crops in a World already nearing the end of its ability to feed its self.
So powerful has this thermal inversion become that reports from the United States are stating that their critical crops of strawberries, oranges, and other fruits and vegetables grown in their Southern States, are being destroyed by record cold temperatures. The US is further reporting record amounts of snowfall in what they are now warning may be their worst winter in 25 years.
Reports from the United Kingdom today are, likewise, showing a Nation in chaos as brutal cold temperatures continue to batter the British people suffering under the worst snow blizzards to hit them in almost 50 years. So dire has it become in the UK that their National Grid yesterday issued only its second warning in its entire history stating that their Nation’s gas supply was running out due to this unprecedented event.
Not just to the UK, but also to the entire European Union has this thermal inversion been affecting as reports from that region show continued chaos is occurring due to plunging temperatures and snows. In the UK, also, reports are showing that the military has been called out to rescue over 1,000 stranded vehicles.
Though the Motherland, and its people, are some of the best equipped in the World to handle such severe winter conditions, the Russian island of Sakhalin was inundated this past week by a rare Snow Cyclone setting off no less than avalanches.
But to the worst affected region of the Northern Hemisphere no one has been hit harder than China, where in what is being described as a “soul-destroying snowstorm” this Asian Nation has been plunged into such havoc the entire country has been brought to a standstill. China further reports that the massive snowstorms hitting them are their worst in 60 years and necessitating their military forces to save over 1,400 people trapped when their train became covered in snow. So overwhelmed by this unprecedented event has China become that they have ordered all of their citizens to help with snow removal too.
South Korea has not been spared either as reports from that Nation are reporting their worst snow storms in their modern history of recording these events.
Reports from Japan are also reporting record snowfall in their Northern Regions, where according to one unnamed Kushiro resident, “Snow falls hard here in Kushiro, but this is the most I have ever seen. The snow’s piling up and we’re running out of places to dump it.”
Canada, another Nation used to extreme winter events, reports that the storm that had hit their maritime provinces this past week was so powerful buildings were knocked off of their foundations in what one resident, Tom Jardine, described as being “worse than a hurricane”.
To the long-term consequences of this thermal inversion caused by the West, these reports further warn that by the puncturing of our atmosphere by the HHARP radars our Planet has, also, been “needlessly exposed” to the growing threat posed to us by the giant mysterious object currently approaching us (named by NASA as G1.9) which we had previously reported on in our January 3rd report titled “Russia Prepares For Asteroid Strike As New Comet Nears Sun”, and which has been blamed for the rapid shifting of our Earth’s North Pole that was first documented in 2005.
But to the most critical aspect of these events it surely lies with the Western World’s continued arrogance in regards to experimenting on both our Planets natural species and human beings, and though who may think that they are ‘gods’, are continuing to give evidence that they are acting more like devils.
DISCLAIMER: Pakistan Daily News does not necessarily agree with the views set forth by the Author of this post.
See also:
The labradors that can detect cancer
Thermageddon, the BBC and a giant snake
Intelligent design - is this the West's answer to fundamentalism?
The tangled web of British Biosciences
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