Giant Rats Sniff Out Landmines in Tanzania

You can sponsor your own rat here: https://www.apopo.org/en/adopt They're also used to sniff out tuberculosis.

For a few years now I am toying with the idea to create a "sniffing" device based on a fish tank. Multiple outlets around the sides, the diluted analytic solution is delivered on one outlet, the other outlets only carry tank water. The fish are trained to expect food at the site with a certain "smell". An overhead camera would detect the movement and distinguish it from random behavior.

While fish are certainly able to smell minute concentrations, I never quite found a viable use case for this idea. For disease diagnostics, the idea of cumulating the pathogens in the fish and their water isn't particularly appealing either.

> Apopo says its rats can each search 200 square metres of land in just 20 minutes; people using metal detectors would take five days to search the same area.

Why would it take 5 days for a human to search approximately 2000 sq ft of space? Seems incorrect.

Similar story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7760643

So, that joke scene on West Wing was actually true. Its amazing how looking at a problem sideways can yield some amazing results.