科學(xué)家讓蝗蟲嗅出炸彈和爆炸物

科學(xué)家讓蝗蟲嗅出炸彈和爆炸物

Could cyborg locusts be the bomb-sniffing dogs of the future?

電子蝗蟲能成為未來(lái)的炸彈嗅探犬嗎?

Scientists who received funding from the US Navy revealed last week that they were able to program the bugs to sense various different smells, including from explosives.

上周，從美國(guó)海軍獲得資助的科學(xué)家們透露，他們能夠?qū)@些臭蟲進(jìn)行編程，使它們能夠感知各種不同的氣味，包括炸藥的氣味。

The team’s preprint research paper, published in BioRxiv, states that the insects have been used to detect gases released by substances such as ammonium nitrate – often used by terrorist groups for bomb-making – as well as military explosives TNT and RDX.

該小組在BioRxiv上發(fā)表的預(yù)印本研究報(bào)告稱，這些昆蟲已被用來(lái)檢測(cè)由硝酸銨等物質(zhì)釋放的氣體，這些物質(zhì)通常被恐怖組織用來(lái)制造炸彈，以及軍事炸藥TNT和RDX。

The robot-bound locusts were exposed to five different explosives and it only took 500 milliseconds of exposure for a distinct pattern of activity to appear in the locusts’ brains. The scientists chose locusts because their tiny antennae are filled with about 50,000 olfactory neurons.

被機(jī)器人束縛的蝗蟲被暴露在五種不同的爆炸物中，僅僅500毫秒后，它們的大腦中就出現(xiàn)了一種截然不同的活動(dòng)模式?？茖W(xué)家選擇蝗蟲是因?yàn)樗鼈兊男∮|角充滿了大約5萬(wàn)個(gè)嗅覺(jué)神經(jīng)元。

Researchers chose locusts because they are sturdy and can carry heavy payloads, according to the preprint paper. They implanted electrodes into the insects’ brains to analyze their neural activity when they were around different substances.

根據(jù)預(yù)印本，研究人員選擇蝗蟲是因?yàn)樗鼈兒芙Y(jié)實(shí)，可以攜帶沉重的貨物。他們將電極植入昆蟲的大腦，分析它們?cè)诓煌镔|(zhì)周圍時(shí)的神經(jīng)活動(dòng)。

The US Office of Naval Research had allocated $750,000 for the project back in 2016.

早在2016年，美國(guó)海軍研究辦公室就為該項(xiàng)目撥款75萬(wàn)美元。

Although the team has not commented about its new work, lead scientist Baranidharan Raman, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Washington University at St. Louis, expressed optimism when he received the grant.

盡管該團(tuán)隊(duì)還沒(méi)有對(duì)他們的新工作發(fā)表評(píng)論，但首席科學(xué)家巴拉尼德哈蘭·拉曼，圣路易斯華盛頓大學(xué)工程與應(yīng)用科學(xué)學(xué)院生物醫(yī)學(xué)工程副教授，在收到這項(xiàng)資助時(shí)表示樂(lè)觀。

“We expect this work to develop and demonstrate a proof-of-concept, hybrid locust-based, chemical-sensing approach for explosive detection,” Raman told The Source.

拉曼告訴《消息來(lái)源》:“我們希望這項(xiàng)工作能夠發(fā)展和演示一種概念驗(yàn)證、基于蝗蟲的混合化學(xué)傳感方法，用于爆炸物探測(cè)。”