January 16, 2002

Bees, landmines, pizzas, guitars According

Bees, landmines, pizzas, guitars

According to the Financial Times, the US army is using bees equipped with data-sending microchips ("smart tags") to detect landmines:

Bees have a liking for the explosive TNT. When tagged bees are released close to areas where landmines have been planted, some of them will home in on the mines. Bees returning to the hive land on special mats that can detect TNT and identify individual bees. The direction of a bee's flight and its flight time are used to calculate the approximate position of any landmines.

Like Samizdata's Walter Uhlman, I can think of all sorts of pernicious uses to which this astounding technology might be put, and I'm sure that if it can be used against us, it will. But, as so often, my deeply paranoid soul struggles with my reflexive wide-eyed enthusiasm for cool stuff, and I have to say I can't resist the idea of a frozen pizza that knows how to cook itself. (Or a self-tuning guitar-- that would be really useful...)

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 16, 2002 12:09 AM | TrackBack