Glowing bacteria that finds landmines

By at 4:59 am Friday, Nov 20

Edinburgh University engineers have a plan to use genetically engineered bacteria that glow in the presence of explosives to detect landmines. The project is student-led, overseen by Alistair Elfick.

The bugs can be mixed into a colourless solution, which forms green patches when sprayed onto ground where mines are buried.

Edinburgh University said the microbes could be dropped by air onto danger areas.

Within a few hours, they would indicate where the explosives can be found.

The scientists produced the bacteria using a new technique called BioBricking, which manipulates packages of DNA.

Glowing bugs could find landmines (via Futurismic)

(Image: Landmine in ground, Cambodia, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Kyle Simourd's Flickr stream)

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Cory Doctorow

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