Glowing Bacteria Could Join Rats, Dogs, and Watercress in De-mining Agricultural Land
The complexity and cost of clearing land mines, which are still responsible for to twenty to thirty thousand casualties a year, has lead to a microorganism based detection method that should speed the location mines.
The awesome power released by a detonating mine
The New Mine Detection Technology
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have engineered a bacteria using the latest BioBrick technology. BioBrick an open source technology of the BioBricks Foundation, a not-for-profit organization founded by engineers and scientists from MIT, Harvard, and UCSF. Simplistically stated, it offers the ability to introduce standardised strands of DNA with known function into bacteria. In this case the Bricks gave the ability to detect the chemicals leaked by buried explosives and to produce chemicals that cause it to glow green. Linking these new functions together produces a safe, easy to grow bacteria that after application to the ground in a coulourless liquid glows green within a few hours. With the location of the mine noted, de-mining can be undertaken quickly without the risk of undetected mines.
This development was run as a technology demonstrator and there are no initial plans to implement the technology.The Need for New De-mining Technologies
The magnitude of the mine problem indicates the need for improved technologies. There are still around a million mines requiring removal. Mines which cost as little as $3 require between $300 and $1,000 to remove them.
The 2009 Portfolio of Mine Action Projects published by UN. UNDP & UN identified 300 projects with a combined budget of US $459 million for 2010. At this time they have only received 5% of this amount.
Land mines have been cleared from 3,200 square kilometers (1,236 square miles) in 90 countries over the last decade, however almost the same area still needs to be de-mined
The United Nations state that “In addition to inflicting physical and psychological damage on civilians, land mines disrupt social services, threaten food security by preventing thousands of hectares of productive land from being farmed, and hinder the return and resettlement of refugees and displaced persons.”
One of the difficulties is that the removal of mines as well as being dangerous is very time consuming which makes it expensive. Part of the problem is finding the mine which when using traditional mine searching requires a slow and very systematic approach. Technologies which reduce this time consuming process and give a high detection rate and low false positive rate would be very useful.
The Range of De-mining Technologies
While the metal detector was originally the tool of choice, the use of non metallic materials and the high false reading level, has called for other detection methodologies. Robots and other mechanical systems have been developed to protect the de-miner from harm but are far more expensive that other methods. Other physical solutions such as ground penetrating radars, acoustics and chemical analysis are also possible.
The alternate biological solutions are based on the detection of the chemicals released by mines. One widely used method used in Tanzania and Mozambique is the use of rats to detect and indicate the location of a mine. The so called Hero Rat like a dog, which are also used, locates the mine by smelling the chemicals associated with a mine. Unlike dogs they are light enough not to set off the mine. Bees have been trained to visit points of high chemical concentration in minefields.
Recently, biotechnologists in Denmark have developed an engineered variety of watercress which turns red when it detects the chemical byproducts of mines. Seeds which require a particular fertiliser to grow (ensuring they do not spread) would be broadcast over the area to be de-mined and allowed to grow for 4 to 6 weeks.
Taking Action
While it can be argued that the actual cost in lives is small compared to poverty, water supply and disease the levels of horror and fear are high. To see what you can do start at the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a nobel prize winner, focussing on treaties to ban mines and Mine Action which has more of a focus on addressing the damage.
Photo by Myles Cullen on Wikimedia Commons in the public domain.
I hope I will not annoy any experts by sugesting that a flailing chain sort of harrow thing be dragged across the area by cables, in like manner to the steam-powered cable-pulled plough ?
I must add that I feel very optimistic for the glowing bateria creation, which is an incredibly good use of an otherwise dodgy technology. An ill wind INDEED that blows no good at all, and this seems like a whole lot of good !
There is so much wrong with the concept that it is difficult to know where to start – essentially what we have here is a solution that does not match the known problems of landmine clearance:
- any detection method should be based on evidence that there is something to detect. The starting point for this sort of technology is to demonstrate that for ALL mines and unexploded ordnance in a particular region there will be “contamination” of the surrounding soil by a substance leaking from the mine. This work has not been done, and the available evidence is that some mines and many UXOs are well sealed and not leaking, even after a long time.
- secondly, how would this method work for such common scenarios as dense vegetation (where people think there are mines they do not usually farm the land, so vegetation grows wild, in the tropics it can reach 5 to 10 metres tall in a few years), tripwire mines with wires hidden in vegetation, and so on.
The real problem in mine clearance is not locating individual mines once we know which area contains mines. There are plenty of technologies available to do that already, and sufficient organisations and people with lots of experience and skills. No, the real problems include (i) identifying land that is free from hazard so it can be released directly to the local people for use (ii) identifying the outer perimeter of mined areas so that deminers do not waste huge amounts of time and money clearing land that does not have, and has never had, any mines, and (iii) actually getting rid of the mines or UXO once they are located. Some countries (e.g. Laos) suffer extreme contamination from unexploded bombs without any mines present. The UXO is easy to locate and usually visible. But the problem of how to get rid of it remains largely unsolved. It isn’t as sexy as detecting buried mines, so receives almost no attention.
Mine Action has been full of this sort of invention for the last 15 years or more. Until the inventors address real problems with real solutions they remain nothing more than a way to boost the inventor’s ego and get cheap press coverage.
This will not be useful for real deminers.
Thanks for showing that mine detection is a small part of mine clearance – the post was about mine detection only. The bacteria based detection method of course wouldn’t work in vegetation.
On mine detection, if we have to rule out chemical based detection because mines could be chemical tight and metal detectors because they might be non metallic I suspect there’s not much left. Is the use of a number of detection methods in a screening mode not useful?