Mice trained to detect explosives

Almaty. February 4. Kazakhstan Today - Mice are trained to detect explosives for airport security, the agency reports.

The newest deterrent to would-be terrorists at airports might just be mice. An Israeli company, BioExplorers, has created a detector that looks like a full-body scanner, but actually contains three compartments containing eight mice, according to the Telegraph.

The mice will work four-hour shifts and are, according to researchers, more effective than dogs or x-ray machines, according to the Daily Mail. Air is pumped into the mice chamber every four hours so the animals can breathe.

When a mouse picks up a trace of something curious, they are trained to flee to a side chamber, which triggers an alarm (to prevent false positives, more than one mouse has to flee).

Mice take roughly ten days to learn their first smell and unlike dogs, they don't need interaction with trainers or constant attention.

The device was first tested on shoppers last year in Tel Aviv when mice picked out 22 people carrying mock explosives, according to the Telegraph.

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