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Synthetic Bacteria Can Reveal Landmines
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♠ Final ♠
11/19/09

In reply to Synthetic Bacteria Can Reveal Landmines
Sounds real damn expensive. The countries that have to deal with land mines are usually Third World and their leaders would probably opt for another mansion rather then spending their money on something like this.
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gorehound
11/19/09

In reply to Synthetic Bacteria Can Reveal Landmines
those little bacties sure are cool and glow like a psychedelic trip
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goldfarb
11/19/09

In reply to Synthetic Bacteria Can Reveal Landmines

I've always wondered why people don't just use one of these things to 'look' for land mines...

just drive around making a huge amount of noise and disturbing the ground should set all the mines off...and these this are indestructible!
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tetracycloide
11/19/09

In reply to Synthetic Bacteria Can Reveal Landmines
well they can't be harmless to everything because they must eat something. also, what help would the be on minefields to new for enough chemicals to have leeched into the surrounding soil? what about land mines that leech nothing into the surrounding soil?
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fuchikoma
11/19/09

@tetracycloide: Yeah, I was thinking "this must react to some explosive compound or part thereof... what if someone makes a hermetically-sealed landmine?

I'd think that wouldn't be so hard to do - nonmetallic ones were an easy enough leap.

But still, there are countless old mines still buried all over the world, so I think this is great.
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Edited by fuchikoma at 11/19/09 1:35 PM fuchikoma was starred fuchikoma was unstarred

tetracycloide
11/19/09

@fuchikoma: that still leaves the question of what do they eat. they have to sustain themselves with something and even if it's photosynthesis they would still require nutriants from the surrounding soil that, more than likely, some other indegenous plant species needs too. a plant that's probalby eaten by some local animal life that is in turn eaten by some other local animal life and oh my god the native apex predator just went extinct and we're knee deep in frogs or some shit.
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fuchikoma
11/19/09

@tetracycloide: It's a good question for sure, and one I wouldn't count on a military product necessarily answering. I'd imagine the most logical choice would be to mod some common soil bacteria, but... who knows?

#speakup
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crashedpc - Haifisch
11/19/09

In reply to Synthetic Bacteria Can Reveal Landmines
That's fine and dandy until the bacteria animate said mines and thus creating the first sentient landmines. With a vengeance.
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ilves
11/19/09

@crashedpc - Haifisch: Or combine to create the first explosive bacteria...
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crashedpc - Haifisch
11/19/09

@ilves: I'd just like to preemptively state that those kinds of bacteria already exist and that cheese only pisses them off.
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