What do you do when you can’t make robotic systems sensitive enough to detect faint traces of an unknown explosive? Normally, one would train dogs, but apparently this takes many months, and many treats. Inscentinel has a different solution- why not use bees instead? They claim that within a few hours, they can train a whole crop of bees to sniff out and react to a different kinds of scent, and then the bees are released back to their hive at the end of their shift.

Maybe someday, they will team up with the people who are creating remote-controlled beetles, in order to create an army of sensor insects to fly around and monitor everything. Which might be ok, as long as they don’t sting me for not doing my laundry. [via neatorama]