Niteshift

And no, I don't mean White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.



TIFTON, Ga. -- Trained wasps could someday replace dogs for sniffing out drugs, bombs and bodies. No kidding.

Scientists say a species of non-stinging wasps can be trained in only five minutes and are just as sensitive to odors as man's best friend, which can require up to six months of training at a cost of about $15,000 per dog.

With the use of a handheld device that contains the wasps but allows them to do their work, researchers have been able to use the insects to detect target odors such as a toxin that grows on corn and peanuts, and a chemical used in certain explosives.

"There's a tremendous need for a very flexible and mobile chemical detector," said U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist Joe Lewis, who has been studying wasps since the 1960s. "Our best devices that we have currently are very cumbersome, expensive and highly fragile."

The "Wasp Hound" research by Lewis and University of Georgia agricultural engineer Glen Rains is part of a larger government project to determine if insects and even reptiles or crustaceans could be recruited for defense work. That project has already resulted in scientists refining the use of bees as land-mine detectors.

Through the years, Lewis and a USDA colleague, J.H. Tumlinson, discovered that a tiny, predatory wasp known as microplitis croceipes had relied on odors to locate nectar for food and hosts for its eggs - caterpillars that damage crops.

While they don't sting humans, the female wasps use their stingers to deposit eggs inside caterpillars, producing larvae that eventually kill the caterpillars.

The scientists also discovered that plants being attacked by the caterpillars give off SOS scents to attract the all-black wasps and that the quarter-inch-long insects could be trained to associate other odors with food and prey.

"They have to be good detectors because their whole survival depends on it," Lewis said.

Rains said the wasps can be trained to detect a specific odor very quickly. The researchers expose hungry wasps to the target odor, then let them feed on sugar water for 10 seconds and then give them a one-minute break. After three repetitions of sniffing and feeding, the wasps associate the odor with feeding.

Since the scientists couldn't put leashes on their trained wasps, they needed a way to contain them while monitoring their reactions to odors.

Enter the Wasp Hound - a 10-inch-long plastic cylinder made of PVC pipe with a hole in one end and a small fan on the other. Inside is a Web camera that connects to a laptop computer for monitoring the behavior of five wasps housed in a transparent, ventilated capsule.

When the wasps detect a target odor, they converge around the vent, creating a mass of dark pixels on the computer screen. Otherwise, they just hang out inside the capsule.

They can work for as long as 48 hours, then they're released to live out their remainder of their two-to three-week life span.

"What we have ... is a technology-free organism that you can quickly program and use in a highly mobile way," said Lewis, who believes the Wasp Hound could be used to search for explosives at airports, locate bodies, monitor crops for toxins and detect diseases such as cancer from the odors in a person's breath.

"They're very cheap to produce and very sensitive," Rains said of the wasps. "Dogs take months to train and they need a specific handler. Wasps can be trained on the spot."

Rains believes the Wasp Hound could be available for sale in three to five years. He and Lewis are still exploring ways to breed more wasps and to train hundreds simultaneously.

"We've done enough on it to know it's technically feasible to do that," Lewis said. "It's just a matter of completing and refining the methodology."

Lewis believes many other types of invertebrates - bees, other types of parasitic insects, even water bugs - can be trained to sniff out trouble.

"It's opened a whole new resource for invertebrates as biological sensors," he said.

Other scientists also are working to harness the sniffing power of insects.

In 2002, the Pentagon considered fitting sniffer bees with transmitters the size of a grain of salt to locate explosives and relay that information wirelessly to laptop computers.

A British firm, Inscentinel Ltd., sells trained bees and mini-hives where the insects' response to scents from natural and man-made chemicals can be monitored. The company says the system can be used to screen for explosives, drugs, chemical weapons, land mines and for food quality control.

Jerry Bromenshenk, a research professor at Montana State University, is using bees for mine detection. The bees congregate over mines or other explosives and their locations are mapped using laser-sensing technology.

"Insects and their antennae have an olfactory system that is pretty much on a par with a dog," Bromenshenk said. "They're a whole lot more plentiful and a lot less expensive to come by."

Bromenshenk said bees may be more appropriate for open areas, while the Wasp Hound may be better in buildings.

"The difference is that we let our bees free fly," he said. "That's not good in confined areas like an airport."

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Higher Logic

That's quite interesting. Then again, things that are natural (e.g. marijuana) are always better than anything synthetic

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Murdock

Wow, the combination of technology and nature never ceases to amaze me.. With that said and in this case, I can see them being used in temporary/high risk envrioments.. I cannot fathom the wasps ever moving in on the turf of the K-9..

Niteshift

I'm wondering about their use in more repetitive environments, like package terminals etc. Dogs have to take a break every so often because their minds are active and will wander at some point. Insects tend to be little task accomplishing machines that think of nothing but completing the task.


How long before PETA starts moaning about the plight of the poor wasp?

Stephanie S.

Indeed, this makes them very useful to us.


Have something against people dedicating their lives to the proper treatment of helpless animals? Like in 1986 when they played a large part in stopping isolation confinement of chimpanzees...or when they stopped Victoria College from using live cats as guinea pigs? Yeah, those bastards will probably start *****ing about the wasps soon too.

Why should they? Well, um, how would you like to be placed in a little container and forced to do work that you are not born to do? Seems bizarre and unnatural to keep any animal caged like that. Since a wasp can't speak for himself, it's a blessing people like PETA are at work.

peace

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"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio)

Niteshift

Have something against people dedicating their lives to the proper treatment of helpless animals? Like in 1986 when they played a large part in stopping isolation confinement of chimpanzees...or when they stopped Victoria College from using live cats as guinea pigs? Yeah, those bastards will probably start *****ing about the wasps soon too.

In a few cases, they have a point. In most cases, they go far overboard.

I love animals, but I do not have a problem with animal testing for medicine and things like that. I don't have a problem with using them for food. I don't think animals have equal rights and I do think we have dominion over animals.

Buzzby

Having spent most of my working career in a cubicle programming computers rather than hunting or gathering, I have great sympathy for these wasps. Not!

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Buzzby

I find that synthetic anti-depressants are much more effective than marijuana at relieving my depression. I find my pickup truck a much more effective way to get across the country than my horse. I find my house to be a lot more comfortable than a cave.

Natural things are not always better than the man-made alternatives.