The “Stealthy Insect Sensor Project” and other unrelated topics
Writing by treason on Thursday, 30 of November , 2006 at 7:42 am
The good news first. Usually the stories that come out of Los Alamos are depressing accounts of incompetent or drug-addled employees going home at night toting classified documents and top secrets. But now there might be something constructive going on up there. It’s been happening for some time, but now even Al Jazeera is reporting it. Scientists have been training bees to stick out their tongues when they smell explosives.
Straight from the lab:
“…Creating a controlled environment in which they could accurately determine the bees’ capabilities, the team demonstrated that the bees’ natural reaction to food - a proboscis extension reflex (PER) in which they stick out their tongues - could be used to record an unambiguous response to scent. The bees responded with a PER when they were exposed to explosive vapors. This paradigm has been tested many times in both laboratory and field settings and is a viable alternative to using dogs or elaborate hardware to detect explosives at low concentrations.”
Say, are we putting dogs out of work? Aren’t bees busy enough? There are so many things to consider here. Bees work themselves to death very quickly and die young. No problem, say researchers, because they’re trained so quickly that orientation time is short - they can begin sniffing out explosives almost immediately after hire.
And this will be good for the economy. We’ll need entrepreneurs to design and manufacture contraptions to carry the bees (dogs just need leashes and collars, but have you ever tried to leash up a bee?); in addition, bees work cheap. All they require is a little sugar water, they don’t take breaks, and they never call in sick.
(With all the security issues at Los Alamos, someone might consider training these insects as “watchbees.”)
In a somewhat related story, there is a website out there that sells radioactive materials. The Albuquerque Journal has chronicled this, but somehow I’ve missed the specific articles. Sounds like the site could be here in Nuevo Mexico. Cool. I was wondering where I could pick up some barium, bismuth, and polonium 210. Wonder if President Putin shops there, too.
Great. Now that I’ve said that the CIA and the KGB will be after me. Well, might as well tick off the IRS, too. What’s up with Estonia? Is Steve Forbes their president? Not only are they going to a paperless government (hence the nickname “e-Stonia”) but they have implemented a simpler, kinder, and gentler tax system. They have a flat tax!
And now our president is talking about coming home and chatting to Congress about the idea. Oh, really? George, I still like you, but where were you on this from 2001 ’til now? Yeah, yeah, I know tax reform was on the agenda, but where was the big push? It’s too late now, damn it. Sigh. Yet another opportunity squandered. May I remind you that I vote for you guys for specific reasons?
1. The Libertarians still need some fine-tuning and a decent candidate before they get my vote (they also need to get on the damned ballot)
2. The three T’s: Tax reform, Tort reform, Terrorism (i.e. national defense)
3. The alternative parties (i.e. the Democrats et al)
It appears I’ll be waiting for tax and tort reform like I’ll be waiting for the Cubs to go to the World Series; can you guys throw me a bone and concentrate on my third T for now?
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