Sniffers

Dolittle’s Raiders
Fortune; May 2, 2005

BYLINE: David Stipp


There’s a rat loose here- at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and it's coming right at me. Suddenly it veers and goes back the way it came. Then it loops around and darts toward me again. It seems to be one dizzy rodent. But it's not. Its movements are being directed by a higher power--I'm playing with its mind by remote control.

Rat No. 3, as she's known, is wearing a tiny backpack crammed with electronics from which several wires lead into her brain through a plastic cap on her head. When I press a personal computer's cursor-control keys, radio signals are transmitted to the backpack, which in turn sends electrical impulses to the parts of her brain that register sensory input from her whiskers. Neuroscientist John Chapin and colleagues here have taught her to go left when her brain's left-whisker area is stimulated, and right upon a right-side tweak. Their training method resembles teaching a dog to roll over: When No. 3 moves as directed, they stimulate her brain's "reward" center through a third wire--like giving a treat to Rover.

The most important thing she's learning is that explosives have yummy aromas. More on that process later. But first the why: "Roborats" like No. 3 may someday be the terrorist's worst nightmare--keen, furtive little spies that can be guided into a building through, say, an air duct and then allowed to roam freely to sniff out explosives, toxic chemicals, or other bad stuff. The team at the Brooklyn center, part of the State University of New York, has even mounted tiny cameras on roborats' backs, enabling remote handlers to see where their furry operatives are going--and what they're finding.

You don't have to think very far out of the box to grasp the attractions of small, cheap, fast-reproducing animals as bomb sniffers. In recent years the Department of Defense has sought to enlist a number of nosy little creatures for the perilous job, including rats, wasps, honeybees, and even yeast (yes, yeast). The program is still a work in progress. But it has shown in fascinating detail that dogs are not the only Einsteins of olfaction, nor necessarily the best animals for nosing out explosives.

Unlike dogs, small animals can walk (or fly) over land mines without setting them off. Bees don't get hip dysplasia. Sniffer dogs need frequent rests; wasps don't. And it's a lot easier to come by insects and rodents than the purebred dogs preferred by bomb squads. In fact the market for sniffer dogs has gotten so hot since 9/11 that con artists have moved in: In 2003 the owner of a Virginia kennel was convicted of fraud after he charged federal agencies more than $ 700,000 for a pack of clueless pooches. In one test they allegedly failed to detect a huge cache of explosives hidden in vehicles right in front of their schnozzes. Bad dogs.

Most of the studies on non-dog sniffers have been funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, an elite force permanently deployed on the border between science and science fiction. A few years ago, says Alan Rudolph, who formerly oversaw DARPA's sniffer-critter projects, it occurred to agency scientists that species whose survival has depended for millions of years on the ability to scent mates and food should have olfactory senses at least as keen as dogs'. Soon after, Rudolph, now CEO of Adlyfe, a Rockville, Md., biotech, began enlisting animal-olfaction experts to see if their favorite beasts could be taught to associate the aroma of explosives with things to which they're attracted.

Forming such associations is obviously a piece of cake (or madeleine) for higher mammals from Lassie to Marcel Proust. But can rats and bugs even smell stuff like TNT, much less be taught to follow their noses to it?

W. Joe Lewis, a Department of Agriculture scientist in Tifton, Ga., was asked by DARPA to answer this question about parasitic wasps. The housefly-sized insects are known for using needle-sharp ovipositors to implant their eggs in caterpillars; the wasp larvae hatch and devour the hosts' insides before bursting out like the vicious beasties in Alien. Lewis's group earlier discovered that wasps exposed to a particular odor while doing their favorite things (stabbing caterpillars or sipping sugar water) would later gravitate toward the odor when re-exposed to it. Significantly, the wasps could be taught to be attracted to very faint odors they don't encounter in the wild.

Getting wind of the findings, DARPA "asked us if we could use wasps like dogs," says Lewis. "At first the idea was to train them to hover over someone [smelling of explosives] like a cloud of mosquitoes." That gave way to a better idea: With colleagues Glen Rains and Jim Tumlinson, Lewis devised a handheld container with a hole through which outside odors are wafted. Inside, wasps previously taught to love the odor of an explosive are monitored with a tiny camera linked to a computer. The system registers when the insects cluster near the hole, showing they've gotten a whiff of bomb stuff. Now the team is seeking backers to commercialize the work.

Meanwhile, DARPA-funded University of Montana researchers have taught honeybees to associate the odor of explosives with sugar water. Led by entomologist Jerry Bromenshenk, the group has devised a clever way to use the trained insects as land-mine finders: The scientists turn the bees loose, then use a radar-like system that bounces laser light off them to show where they tend to cluster. The team was able to locate several defused land mines at a U.S. Army test site, according to a 2003 report. The real-world potential isn't clear, though--flowers might distract the bees, for instance. (DARPA declined to comment on the status of its sniffer projects.)

Perhaps the most futuristic sniffers on the agency's list are yeast. DARPA grantee Atto Bioscience, a Rockville, Md., biotech acquired last year by Becton Dickinson, has installed genes for mammalian olfactory receptors in the one-celled microbes. (The receptors are molecules jutting from nose cells that glom onto airborne chemicals, triggering nerve signals.) With additional gene implants, the Rockville team hopes to get the altered yeast cells to light up like tiny fireflies when they "smell" explosives. "We've achieved partial success," says team leader Michael Brasch. But the microbes won't nose out dogs anytime soon.

Rats, on the other hand, could soon pose some sniff competition. African giant pouched rats, which resemble big-eared cartoon rodents the size of rabbits, are leading the way. They're being trained to sniff out land mines by a Belgian nonprofit group called Apopo, which plans to put them to work this year in Sudan.

Professor Chapin of the Brooklyn roborats recently devised an elegant solution to a longstanding problem: determining when a sniffer rat has found a bomb. That's not easy with an animal roving far from its handlers. His idea is simply to add a button to roborats' backpacks; the animals would be trained to press it when they smell a bomb, transmitting a signal to home base. That is brilliant: Rats readily learn to press levers for rewards, and Chapin's team has already taught roborats to sniff out objects redolent of plastic explosives. Still, he isn't certain it will work--the rats may learn to push the buttons for rewards when there's no bomb around. That's just what you'd expect of a dog surrogate: an animal that plays with our minds.

Copyright 2005 Time Inc.

Buzz Off

Bees, wasps and other flying insects are swarming around the hedges in the front of my house. It was mesmerizing to watch for a while and take some great notes on the flight characteristics of all the different insects. I've got a few brainstorms going for some new aerovehicle designs.

BUT then one of the wasps had to go and land on my arm and sting me, ruining the whole arrangement for everyone.

Chemical warfare. They drew first blood, not me, as Rambo once said. I tried to prevent an adverse amount of collateral damage to the civilian bug population that had nothing to do with the initial attack, but inadvertently a bee or two got hit. My apologies to the bee community. I was able to zap a least 50 terrorist wasps, with the direct chem sprays, then coated their favorite landing zones with a deterrent spray. Overall I'd say the strategic success in the theater of operations was about 98%.

Yes, I have nothing better to do on a gorgeous sunny warm day.

What Are You?

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman
By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful. For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.

Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.



Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.


Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents - from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...

"Baa."

Blaspheme

What's the big deal about the Pope? I don't get it. He's just a man - nothing more, yet so many treat him as a super-theological power ranger. Could someone who thinks his existence and passing is a much bigger deal than myself please clue me in?

More Quotes

Since they seem to be popular lately, here are a few others I've come a cross lately:

So, should I be offended that you are lying to me, or should I be offended that you think I'm that fucking stupid to believe this bullshit?

That’s more fucked up than a chicken wire kayak.

Your breath is so bad, it could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, BUT rather to SKID In BROADSIDE, completely used up, totally worn out, and SCREAMING "WOW---WHAT A RIDE"!!

You're about as sharp as the cutting edge on a bowling ball.

Jesus loves you but the rest of us think you're an idiot

If breathing were not a brain-stem function you'd be blue and twitching.

Deny everything, admit nothing, and make counter accusations.

Fucking Diversity

I've noticed out of all the words in the English language, "fuck" has to be one of the most diverse words ever originated. Just think of all the ways it can be used!

"You gotta be fuckin’ shittin me?!" (Shit happens)
"I didn't know whether to fuck, shit, run or go blind" (Confusing situation)
"Fuck Off" (Leave me alone)
“Fuck You! (Fuck You!)
"No, Fuck You!" (Same as above)
"Motherfucker" (Dang it, I screwed up – or Said just before thwacking someone)
"Absofuckinglutely" (Hell yeah!)
"Outfuckingstanding" (When a plan comes together)
"What'a you? a fucking idiot?" (Response to stupidity)
"Fuck" (Your day continually getting worse)
"Dude, did you fucking see that?!" (Unbelievable occurrence – UFO stuff)
"No fuckin’ shit, there I was..." (Can’t believe it happened to you)
"No fuckin’ shit, I was there!" (Witness to monumental historical event)
"You monkeyfucker" (Joking around)
"Lickballs motherfucker!" (Said as you depart rapidly –as in a drag race)


Fuckin' A, there's so many more! Just try it - I bet you can think of many many more!