Genetically Modified Flower Detects Landmines

cdneng2 writes "Yahoo has the story that a Danish company has developed a plant that can detect landmines. The genetically modified weed that has been coded to change color when its roots come in contact with nitrogen-dioxide (NO2) evaporating from explosives buried in soil." The company website has a bit more information.

Spirit of Diana Spencer

[The I Shing]

I wish Diana Spencer were alive to see this development. I bet she would have gotten other celebrities to underwrite the use of this technology to save countless lives worldwide. But luckily there are other wealthy individuals who might undertake an experiment with this plant, and make that company rich in the process (which is, in the words of Stuart Smalley, "okay").

Elton John will write a song about it, too.

Nice to see a company making a bio weapon that helps people instead of making them die horribly and slowly.

GM is good

[pbrinich]

Well, this might be one use of GM where the environmentalists can't complain much with all the children maimed and killed by these things each year...

Drop them from planes over third world countries

[Jonas the Bold]

Use something like a crop duster at a highish altitude to drop the seeds all over large areas of land in third world countries. This will make demining so much easier.

If the environmentalists oppose this, if they can engineer the seeds so that the plants can't have offspring (I forget what the term is), they could drop a ton of seeds over a tract of land they plan to demine, and a few months later finding the mines will be very easy.

Good Idea

[Grey_14]

This is the kinda thing Genetic Engineering and Modification should be going into, not for Cheaper prices in the supermarket, or Glowing fish,
Lets see more food in starving country's, Less Landmines, and other ways to improve life,

Of course, thats whats been said about just about any new or improved technology in the last what, 30 years?

And...

[mewyn]

Despite the fact that this flower may save hundreds of lives and thousands of injuries, anti-genetic research people are bound to delay this from being deploied.
I do think that it will need to be tested to make sure it causes no harm, but it is going to be a great help in some war-torn countries.

Mewyn Dy'ner

Re:But....

[techno-vampire]

If you'd read the article, it suggests using crop-dusting planes to plant the seeds. Then, when they see where the mines are, they not only can tell just where to dig, they can see how to get to them safely.

It won't work

[psb777]

Landmines are fairly small devices so a high plant density would be required. Much land is not easily planted - esp by airplane. It will have to be a remarkable plant to grow in all the conditions it will be needed. They would need one variety for paddy fields, another for savanna, etc etc. To have a chance of getting growing plants in sufficient density you would have to plough the land first.

Re:Drop them from planes over third world countrie

[KReilly]

But I wonder what happens when it misses some of the mines (E.g. Mines too deep, too new, plant did not grow close enough too it). That kind of defeats the purpose of doing this if they have to double back over the entire field to make sure they have not missed any. I think the idea is awesome, but not fool proof. And the fact that these seeds have to survive, and beat out other plants in the area. I think it is totally fascinating, and a creative idea, but seems to have a very small range of effective uses.

Re:Yes, but...

[Russ Steffen]

More importantly, that's a mine you no longer have to worry about...

Re:Good Idea

[donutello]

Cheaper prices in the supermarket are usually the result of greater production and lower cost to produce so the same stuff that brings you cheaper prices in the supermarket is what you need to have more food in starving countries.

GM is a tool. Like almost any other tool you can use it for good, evil or something frivolous.

What next? You want legislation saying that computers should only be used to educate low-income students and not for playing games?

Mine Disposal

[chadjg]

I'm no EOD tech, but maybe finding the little buggers is 98% of the problem. Once they are found a person could either just mark and leave them in place or blow them up.

Once the weeds mark the mines, a rich villager could call in the army or police and they will lay a few dollars worth of detonating cord next to the mines and clear the field at 20,000 feet per second. Or the army guy could sit back and take shots at the mines from beyond the minimum safe difference.

The poorer and/or depressed villager could tie a rope onto a chunk of tree or a rock, heave the weight on the other side fo the marked area, get behind a tree and then give the rope a good pull.

Obviously these methods have problems. both would leave a lot of fragments flying around, and are not exactly risk free for the person doing the job.

Call me a cruel, heartless bastard, but this isn't oing to be a problem. All you have to do is tell the villagers to stay away from a certain area while the work is being done. Anybody that forgets or doesn't get the news is just gonna be SOL. If a hut gets a bunch of fragments thrown thru it, then they will have to spend a day repairing it. No big deal.

From what I've been able to pick up, a few flying chunks of metal is not going to be real high on the worry list for people that have land mine problems. Waking up is a bigger risk. Getting enough food, not getting some god-awful tropical disease or not pissing off the latest dictator is going to fill their worry bin.

Most countries that have real land mine issues are desperately poor and need something like these plants just to cut down on their chances of having their kids legs blown off. Rich countries can solve their problems with robotics and large amounts of beer for their off duty ordinance techs.

Right or wrong, certainty is for rich countries. Bravo to these scientists.

Re:What Happens

[Bagheera]

A combined effect? A one less mine, and some chlorine in the gene pool.

But seriously, this seems like one of the most humanatarian uses of BioTech I've ever heard of. They even made the plant sterile on deployment to stop cross contamination.

Awesome development if it works as advertised.

Re:What Happens

[glesga_kiss]

When the kids of 3 world countries run out into the fields to pick the flowers??

They grow up hating the country that made the landmines? Sounds all too familiar.

Re:What Happens

[cduffy]

to stop cross contamination

You mean "to prevent unauthorized use", right?

Preventing cross-contamination is just a handy side effect.

Re:3 to 6 weeks??

[steptoe6125]

3 to 6 weeks is not a long time considering that many countries have spent upwards of 10 years trying to mitigate their existing landmine problem.

Oil

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the had genetically modified flowers to turn colors when on top of oil or coal deposits? Would you guys still approve?

Re:Yes, but...

[amRadioHed]

Also, I don't think that the seeds would need to be closer together than the land mines. The gas is going to disperse as it travels through the soil, it's not going to close in on a smaller point over the mine. I'm sure the engineers have thoroughly researched the optimal seed dispersion.

Re:On the topic of DNA

[jim3e8]

The Kurzweil article contained a section titled "The Double Exponential Growth of the Economy During the 1990s Was Not a Bubble". Meanwhile, I'm reading "A Thoughtful Look at Indian Outsourcing" on the front page.

Re:What Happens

[Guppy06]

"Any kid growing up in a country where landmines are a problem is probably very likely to listen to the nice soldiers"

Any kid growing up in a country where landmines are a problem probably has at least one friend their own age short a few limbs.

Re:Good Idea

[Thaelon]

This is the kinda thing Genetic Engineering and Modification should be going into, not for Cheaper prices in the supermarket, or Glowing fish, Lets see more food in starving country's, Less Landmines, and other ways to improve life,

Of course, thats whats been said about just about any new or improved technology in the last what, 30 years?

No let's not see more food. Let's see more contraceptives. The problem isn't that there isn't enough food, it's that there are too many people for the land to supply. Sending food on temporarily solves the symptom of the problem. The problem being overpopulation. It sounds harsh, but in the end fewer people would starve fewer children especially.

Unfortunately I can't take credit for this idea, I read it in Ishmael [ishmael.com].

Re:The USA still supports the use of landmines

[refactored]

Nope, that is the stated reason. The real reason is the yanks just love their cluster munitions [commondreams.org]. They feel they really have the edge on the world with them.

Re:When are you murderers going to sign the Treaty

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. that's the reason you sell all those landmines to the third world....

You guys are just standing up for what is right and fair

got it , thanks

Re:When are you murderers going to sign the Treaty

[theTerribleRobbo]

What about AFTER the conflict? One of the main problems with landmines is that they hang around after the conflict has finished, unless they're detonated.

But then again, it's not hard to miss just one, maybe two, especially if you aren't organised (like some non-US armies may be).

Re:What Happens

[AllenChristopher]

nice soldiers that say "stay away from flowers that look like this... we grow them on mine fields."

It isn't that soldiers will grow them in mine fields. The point is that if you live in, say, Laos, and you want to make a new farm, you don't have to walk through it searching for bombs with a stick anymore. You spread these seeds from a plane, then wait. Anywhere the flowers say there's a mine, you do whatever. Throw a big rock at it? Ask the internationally sponsored mine-clearing teams to take it? I don't know.

This is a useful idea many parts of Asia. Vast swathes of countryside were tactically mined in various wars, then abandoned. Nobody really knows which fields these are.

As for kids... it's often children who do the mine-clearing now. There is relatively insignificant chance that children will be more attracted to the flowers which have changed color to indicate a bomb than the rest of the flowers, and at the same time, many children will be saved from operating the bomb-prodding stick. This is sure to bring a net profit of children.