Bomb-Sniffing Mice Are Being Trained to Detect Explosives at Airports

Small but mighty, an Israeli security firm believes that specially trained mice have the nose for sniffing out security threats.

Forget dogs and metal detectors! The future of airport security just got a bit smaller.

Taking a novel approach to bomb detection, a system developed by Israeli security firm X-Test is using mice to protect passengers from security threats. The company claims that, despite their unimpressive appearance, mice are far more effective at detecting explosives than humans, dogs and even machines.

Yuval Amsterdam, X-Test’s vice president, explained the impetus behind the company’s system to The Independent. “They’re as good as dogs as far as their ability to sense, but they’re smaller and easier to train,” said Amsterdam. “They’re cheap, and you don’t have to take them for a walk. Once they are trained, they become bio-sensors.”

Travelers with a fear of rodents need not fret. As the mice carry out their detection duties, they won’t be scampering over passengers and their bags. Instead, they will be safety contained inside cages at appointed security checkpoints.

As travelers pass through these checkpoints, the mice will sniff them and their luggage for the scent of explosives, which they will have been trained to identify. The mice will also be trained to alert their human handlers when a threat has been detected.

Because the mice can be trained in large numbers, Amsterdam says they will produce more reliable results. While current aviation procedures rely on things like metal detectors, X-ray screenings and chemical trace tests, X-Test believes their mice will be able to identify individuals who are carrying explosive devices internally.

As Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International explains, this particular scenario is regarded as a major threat to the airline industry. “We do not currently have explosive detection capability in our portals, or an accepted way of detecting ‘internal carries’,” said Baum. “The mice just might plug that security hole.”

Even though, at the time of reporting, no airport has firm plans to add X-Test’s mice to their security staff, Amsterdam says the mice could be deployed in multiple scenarios beyond the world of aviation.  “We can teach them anything that has a scent — whether it’s explosives, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s ivory from Africa. Anything that has a smell.”

[Photo: iStock]