12 ms·

Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

195 points by danso 4y ago

Victerius 4y ago
I had several thoughts while reading this article. > Cambodia is contaminated with millions of unexploded ordnances dropped as cluster bombs by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. In addition, millions of land mines were buried throughout the country during a series of civil wars from the 1970s–1990s. Millions. I can't process numbers that large. I know what a million is, but I struggle to imagine what a million land mines would look like. What happened to Southeast Asia during the 20th century was so sad and tragic. > Rats have been so successful that the rodents are now seen as competition for the more traditionally used military dogs for mine clearance. I didn't know dogs were used to clear mines. I would have thought they would be too heavy to walk on mines, considering that mines can kill children, and military working dogs have a weight comparable to children. Lastly, I wondered whether it would be both possible, economical, and militarily sensible to create mines that expire after a certain time, due to an engineered deterioration process for the detonator or for the explosive charge. A form of planned obsolescence. Few conflicts last more than a few years. Is a five year old mine really that useful militarily? Fresh mines can be dropped from aircraft now if a sudden need arised. The Korean Demilitarized Zone is the most obvious example I can think of where old mines might still serve a future purpose.
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  >to create mines that expire after a certain time Some modern mines have a programmed self destruct time. An additional safety is an electrical detonator system that is powered by a battery with a limited capacity: once the battery runs out, it can no longer fire the detonator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system A mine with a discharged battery is not exactly safe, but without the detonator it requires extreme conditions or decades of aging to explode.
- markdown 4y ago
  > Fresh mines can be dropped from aircraft now if a sudden need arised. How would this work? Surely the impact would trigger detonation.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    Naval mines have dropped by parachute. You could drop them with mechanical timers before they arm. There are reminiscent of Swiss watch mechanisms for munitions already. I imagine a shape that will definitely land in one direction could have a pressure switch on the other.
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      There are mines that set themselves up in the proper orientation after deployment, the AT2 for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT2_mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT2_mine
  - defrost 4y ago
    Mines and bombs can be complex objects, especially bombs that are intended to not immediately explode and thus deny access | use up human resources due to the poised threat. Even as far back as WWII bombs from aircraft included booby trapped "anti personnel" bombs with secondary fuses hidden back to kill bomb disposal experts. In the case of your concern, bombs can be released with "chemical burn safeties" (for example - when released from an aircraft two agents are released that start a timed burn that arms the bomb after X minutes (and the ground is reached). Other technicques can use the impact force to arm a mine, it's not dangerous until after it's been slammed into the ground, etc.
    - btilly 4y ago
      How the bomb disposal experts first learned their craft is insane. https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Uxb-Heroic-Story-Disposal/dp/0349122377 https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Uxb-Heroic-Story-Disposal/dp/0... has the story. Short version, the person working with the bomb would call out what they saw, then do what the partner said. The partner had a book and was out of the blast radius. They recorded it all, and if the bomb blew up would write down not to do THAT again! Eventually they learned to somewhat reliably disarm the bombs by this type of trial and error. And then the other side would add better booby traps to stop them from succeeding. Crazy.
- senortumnus 4y ago
  Antipersonnel mines absolutely should have an expiry date after which they are no longer triggered by the depression of their sensor. Issue is, these things are mass manufactured and probably have some defect rate which increases with time after deployment. So they couldn’t be trusted to be ‘safe’ after expiring anyway. But still would save lives & limbs to have a mechanism like that built in.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    That’s just not how explosives work. Any detonator explosive to set of a main charge must be reliable for dozens of good reasons. Over time an as a required condition. Asking for something decays or approaches an unreliable state after time is a non-starter. Another user pointed to a basically failed electronic program, but even then, you have to detonate the mines, you can’t just disarm them and make the highly efficient explosives ready for other uses. You wouldn’t ever give your enemy deliveries of repackagable charges.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Another user pointed out [0] that such a system does exist. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33797151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33797151
    - Hithredin 4y ago
      From a strategic perspective, obsolescent mines make total sense. I wonder why it is not the norm. Country usually don't wage war just to destroy (Seeing Ukraine, not so sure anymore). But to own and use the land. This allow to keep the territory futureproof. While for the defender it's even more logic. Long live mines are only useful around long term places: military base, korean border, ...
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      So in your post to incorrect others on 'thats not how explosives work' you got absolutely everything wrong about how explosives work. Typical HN. > You wouldn’t ever give your enemy deliveries of repackagable charges. Where did you get this preposterous idea? Do you imagine a major military will send out it's soldiers to collect labdmines on purpose to dissasemble them and take out tiny amount of explosive? And after loosing dozens of soldiers and huge amount of time to get explosives of dubious age and quality, do what with it?
- conradev 4y ago
  A better idea is to just get rid of mines entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    These treaties are largely useless because certain large powers refuse to sign them. Sure, it's nice if Switzerland or Norway signs such a treaty, but that doesn't exactly change anything.
    - sitic 4y ago
      Ukraine has ratified the Ottawa Treaty linked above. I'll note that it only bans the use of all non-remote-controlled anti-personnel landmines.
    - conradev 4y ago
      The US committed to the treaty with an exception for its existing use of mines between North and South Korea
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  > I didn't know dogs were used to clear mines. I would have thought they would be too heavy to walk on mines, considering that mines can kill children, and military working dogs have a weight comparable to children. Remember that a dog almost always has two of its paws on the ground. Forgiving for dynamics, if a 50lb child is walking, it could place all 50lbs on a trigger. A 50lb dog should only be able to place 25lbs. I would think they just use smaller dogs. And maybe some do still blown up, we wouldn’t have any idea.
  - BucketsMcG 4y ago
    Even a light dog can put a surprising amount of pressure through its feet if it wants to. Tiny paws mean it's all concentrated in a small area. My 10kg dog feels like he weighs a ton when he puts his front paws on me and leans into it. I've no idea what it takes to trigger a mine, and I don't know if it would be enough, but a dog can press down harder than you'd expect.
    - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
      I know what you mean, when they stand on you wrong it's surprisingly heavy. But it's point loaded. A dog doesn't do that while walking around on even-ish ground. The point is it would take unusual scenarios for a dog to get 100% of their weight on one foot, but any toddler does it every step. I would think this works both ways though. Yes, smaller surface area is bad, but also reduces the chance the dog presses down on a trigger. But then again... they have four feet, but then they a narrower track, but then they probably take more steps. It's complicated I suppose!
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Specifically anti-tank mines tend to be designed NOT to detonate with only a person walking on them, so maybe dogs are more useful for clearing those
- asdff 4y ago
  There should be international laws where after wartime, governments are responsible for clearing out any leftover ordinances and must perform ecological cleanup. One would think the U.S. government would be in support of this because it would make wars too cost prohibitive for other nations, and the contracts would be an excellent profitmaking opportunity for the military industrial complex.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    How exactly do you enforce such a law? If the victor refuses to follow the law, invade their country, set up a new puppet government, and put them on trial?
    - asdff 4y ago
      Sanction them until their oligarchs turn on the executive.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        I don't think I've seen any examples in real life of this actually working, even though it seems to be the normal enforcement mechanism.
        asdff 4y ago
        IMO because they don't sanction nearly enough
        dmichulke 4y ago
        With your approach there's always the risk that your sanctions are worse for the population than the consequences of the mines, particularly because economic damage is compounding. How do you deal with that?
        ChadNauseam 4y ago
- aaron695 4y ago
- magic_hamster 4y ago
  > Millions. I can't process numbers that large. You should read about Laos then, which has the largest amount of UXOs, and specifically the consequences, and how they got there. It's infuriating.
- joshuahedlund 4y ago
  If you want to learn more about the mines in Camobida I highly recommend the low-budget documentary Until They're Gone[0], which features a small human-based mine removal effort promoted by Landmine Relief Fund[1]. I read an article in the Economist a couple years about the lingering impacts of mines and ordinance in Cambodia, and it struck me heavily and I looked up more information and came across those. It's horrible that all these ordinances are still maiming people decades after a war that their country was hardly even involved in, but there's also a lot of exciting work and progress being made. A mine-free Cambodia really is possible, and in not that many years! [0]http://www.untiltheyregone.com/ http://www.untiltheyregone.com/ [1]https://www.landmine-relief-fund.com/ https://www.landmine-relief-fund.com/
satvikpendem 4y ago
This being on the front page at the same time as "The Army tried to develop a missile guided by pigeons" is...interesting [0]. Looks like militaries are having fun using animals for warfare. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33779361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33779361
- Semaphor 4y ago
  It’s not just the military, the rats here are used by APOPO [0] a non-profit. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APOPO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APOPO
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  If you think that’s wild you should hear what the cavalry used to do with horses (and sometimes still do).
- hackeraccount 4y ago
  Two words: Bat bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
dis-sys 4y ago
My preyer are with those brave rats who died for the peace of mankind.
- derefr 4y ago
  From the article: > While large for rats, they are weightless for the land mines and can walk safely across a live minefield.
asimjalis 4y ago
They should use AI driven mini robots that go around and blow up mines.
- themodelplumber 4y ago
  They should develop smart plants with a distributed root system, an overabundance of shoots, a preference for seeking mines, and a high threshold for shoot pain. This would also prepare us with countermeasure systems control for when the AI tries to take over.
  - octodog 4y ago
    What happens when the smart plants with a high tolerance for pain start taking over?
    - haydenchambers 4y ago
  - rmason 4y ago
    Smart plants that turn red when their roots reach explosives have been around for close to twenty years. Why have they not succeeded? Near as I can tell the Danish company that launched them experienced huge pushback because they were GMO's and this was the height of anti-GMO hysteria in Europe. The charities that would fund distribution wanted nothing to do with GMO plants - even if they saved lives. I found one study that said the rats were more cost effective. The seeds had to be flown over the field and a great number of them refused to germinate. Years later grass started being seeded with a moist paper mulch that contained a small amount of fertilizer. Would it work with these seeds? Far as I can tell the Danish company abandoned development of the product. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plants_that_change_color_and_mark_buried_explosives.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plants_that_change_c...
    - Nitrolo 4y ago
      That is incredible. In the literal sense of the word, I thought you were joking until I was halfway through your post. Do you have any more links? I'd love to learn more.
raisin_churn 4y ago
I would prefer to use US senators who refuse to ratify the Mine Ban Convention. They won't need any particular skills or training, just have them wander around possible UXO sites until they find one with their foot. The great thing about this is, US senators are a 100% renewable resource.
- anikan_vader 4y ago
  An interesting idea, although I think the US is actually ahead of the curve on mines. From Wikipedia: >> Opponents point out that the Ottawa Convention places no restriction whatsoever on anti-vehicle mines which kill civilians on tractors, on school buses, etc. The position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
  - raisin_churn 4y ago
    Well, my comment was highly abbreviated for the sake of pithiness, but US ratification of the treaty would be more meaningful than the US simply not employing landmines itself. (NB While I place all the blame on senators for not ratifying it, technically no US president has signed it, so the Senate hasn't actually had the opportunity to ratify, but Senate leaders have made their opposition clear for decades so they definitely deserve the blame I'm pointing in their direction.) Furthermore, landmines haven't actually been a weapon that the US military has considered tactically useful in nearly 50 years, so saying that we won'ist use them (because they're not useful to us), but not pressuring other countries which may find them useful despite their horrific downsides, isn't exactly upstanding. And, the article title on HN is misleading, because this isn't just about landmines, it's about unexploded ordnance (UXO) more generally. The US, in addition to not signing the Mine Ban Convention, refuses to sign/ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and has significant quantities of cluster munitions in the inventory, with an alarmingly high failure rate (meaning the munition doesn't detonate when it is supposed to, leaving dangerous UXO that only becomes more dangerous over time). So, yes, there's nuance, but honestly not enough to let US leaders off the hook for these horrors.
ggm 4y ago
African giant pouched rat. Cheek pouches. (not marsupial). Poor eyesight so the sniffing is presumably evolutionary advantage for the niche they'd normally occupy. Given enough time, I wonder what other social adaptive qualities could emerge in a species like this? Domestication of dogs and cats had huge longterm upsides for both species and humans. Most rats by number are now co-occupants of human space but by species I'd be less sure. I had no idea how big the genus is until I dived into the rabbit hole. (If you like large rats, look out for the Rakali or water-rat: web footed, and quite large. They live in the lake of Canberra amongst other places. I don't think they are trainable or economically exploitable beyond nature tourism. They are very very cute. Like Otters sort-of, but .. rats) These pouched rats are very cute. And doing amazing work.
- sw104 4y ago
  I've owned multiple (fancy) rats as pets in my time. The species is somewhat split into domesticated and non-domesticated. My rats would probably never have survived in the wild (due to their appearance, sand/tuxedo coloured, instead of just gray/brown), and likewise wild rats wouldn't be possible to domesticate. There's quite a few videos on YouTube of the social skills they can develop. Quite amazing animals, but incredibly short lives. Most people who have them don't get new ones after the originals die because it can be so heartbreaking losing a pet every 2 years or so.
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    “My rats would probably never have survived in the wild” I remember watching a video where they released some pet rats into the wild. They adapted very quickly and did well. These little buggers are very smart.
    - grey413 4y ago
      Most domesticated animals that I can think of do just fine when they're released into the wild. In fact, I don't think there's any domesticated animals out there that don't have a feral population running around somewhere.
frereubu 4y ago
Slightly OT, but there's a great podcast about the era when these landmines were laid, In The Shadows of Utopia: https://www.shadowsofutopia.com/ https://www.shadowsofutopia.com/ The presenter takes the time to give a lot of historical context before getting into the Khmer Rouge etc. It's been a real education for me.
gbuk2013 4y ago
In addition to mine clearance, APOPO also train rats to sniff out tuberculosis in samples: https://apopo.org/what-we-do/detecting-tuberculosis/how-we-do-it/process/ https://apopo.org/what-we-do/detecting-tuberculosis/how-we-d...
mmkos 4y ago
I translated a talk about these rats once. Interestingly, they are also used to sniff out tuberculosis in people, or at least were a few years ago. :)
langsoul-com 4y ago
Wonder if other nations that have a high amount of land mines would adopt the same program? A bonus is how rats are more disposal than dogs.
- lukas099 4y ago
  And cost less to the organizations raising and training them.
systematical 4y ago
PBS Newshour also did a segment on this a while back if you prefer video: https://www.pbs.org/video/how-giant-african-rats-are-finding-land-mines-cambodia-kl1qg/ https://www.pbs.org/video/how-giant-african-rats-are-finding...
eknkc 4y ago
So I thought from the title that they were releasing a bunch of rats to a minefield and let them trigger the mines. But apparently mines are sensitive to much larger weights and it does not work like that. Rats are trained to sense the mines via smell. Neat.
sbaiddn 4y ago
This is a serious question: In a place like the DMZ, are mines really immoral? Are land mines universally immoral? Anymore than any other weapon of war? Does this immorality extend to naval as opposed to land mines? No one is walking freely in the DMZ. Certainly not children. If land mines are effective (US generals say no, but they don't win too many wars.) they raise the cost of attack almost for free. This stabilizes the situation avoiding what would be a devastating war. Some object that a war that gets rid of the North Korean regime is necessary and not to be avoided. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but point out that I chose the DMZ merely as a widely known dangerous example. The example can be changed to any border dispute between two "dangerous" countries (say India and Pakistan). Nor can the "indiscriminate nature" save the argument. A cluster bomb thrown into a city is indiscriminate and a terrible thing. But the immoral act is deploying the weapon where it acts without discretion. This is no different from carpet bombing city a la WW2. So the question remains: why are land mines malum in se? And how are the uniquely evil compared to any other weapon of war? [1] [1] Im not being facetious. I believe there are inherently evil weapons, chemical or biological ones come to mind, while other weapons have, if not a nobility to them, are not inherently evil: the rifle.
- penneyd 4y ago
  Land mines persist long after the wars have ended, quietly waiting to maim the innocent.
  - sbaiddn 4y ago
    Ok, thats a strong argument. But, Im not convinced. For starters, if we assume humans have the ability to solve conflicts like the DMZ we should be able to put a structure in place to prohibit people from going to old mine fields. That is, fundamentally, the basis of nuclear waste storage: the belief that society can create a future political structure to keep humans out of a dangerous place. (I doubt that we can, so Im opposed to nuclear power, and I'll grant that it follows that this is an argument against mines.) Im not arguing that land mines should be used liberally over large swaths of land. The DMZ is a narrow strip of land. If the Korean dispute ever ends (I have my doubts), it can be made into a nature preserve. Or it can be carefully de-mined over centuries like Europe has been since the wars. Continental Europeans have lived and worked around unstable explosives for over 100 years. And, as long lasting as land mines are, its not obvious to me that our conflicts can not outlast them (!! I do have faith in our obstinacy). The Korean war is 70 years old, the DMZ is not a dry desert (some border regions are, however). Eventually the materials will crumble and nature will take over. Finally, the basic question remains unanswered: are the (relatively rare) loss of life and limbs of innocents over decades or centuries worse that a war like the one that would break out between the Koreas? That's not obvious to me.

195 points by danso 4y ago

I had several thoughts while reading this article. > Cambodia is contaminated with millions of unexploded ordnances dropped as cluster bombs by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. In addition, millions of land mines were buried throughout the country during a series of civil wars from the 1970s–1990s. Millions. I can't process numbers that large. I know what a million is, but I struggle to imagine what a million land mines would look like. What happened to Southeast Asia during the 20th century was so sad and tragic. > Rats have been so successful that the rodents are now seen as competition for the more traditionally used military dogs for mine clearance. I didn't know dogs were used to clear mines. I would have thought they would be too heavy to walk on mines, considering that mines can kill children, and military working dogs have a weight comparable to children. Lastly, I wondered whether it would be both possible, economical, and militarily sensible to create mines that expire after a certain time, due to an engineered deterioration process for the detonator or for the explosive charge. A form of planned obsolescence. Few conflicts last more than a few years. Is a five year old mine really that useful militarily? Fresh mines can be dropped from aircraft now if a sudden need arised. The Korean Demilitarized Zone is the most obvious example I can think of where old mines might still serve a future purpose.

sbierwagen 4y ago
>to create mines that expire after a certain time Some modern mines have a programmed self destruct time. An additional safety is an electrical detonator system that is powered by a battery with a limited capacity: once the battery runs out, it can no longer fire the detonator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system A mine with a discharged battery is not exactly safe, but without the detonator it requires extreme conditions or decades of aging to explode.
markdown 4y ago
> Fresh mines can be dropped from aircraft now if a sudden need arised. How would this work? Surely the impact would trigger detonation.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  Naval mines have dropped by parachute. You could drop them with mechanical timers before they arm. There are reminiscent of Swiss watch mechanisms for munitions already. I imagine a shape that will definitely land in one direction could have a pressure switch on the other.
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    There are mines that set themselves up in the proper orientation after deployment, the AT2 for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT2_mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT2_mine
- defrost 4y ago
  Mines and bombs can be complex objects, especially bombs that are intended to not immediately explode and thus deny access | use up human resources due to the poised threat. Even as far back as WWII bombs from aircraft included booby trapped "anti personnel" bombs with secondary fuses hidden back to kill bomb disposal experts. In the case of your concern, bombs can be released with "chemical burn safeties" (for example - when released from an aircraft two agents are released that start a timed burn that arms the bomb after X minutes (and the ground is reached). Other technicques can use the impact force to arm a mine, it's not dangerous until after it's been slammed into the ground, etc.
  - btilly 4y ago
    How the bomb disposal experts first learned their craft is insane. https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Uxb-Heroic-Story-Disposal/dp/0349122377 https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Uxb-Heroic-Story-Disposal/dp/0... has the story. Short version, the person working with the bomb would call out what they saw, then do what the partner said. The partner had a book and was out of the blast radius. They recorded it all, and if the bomb blew up would write down not to do THAT again! Eventually they learned to somewhat reliably disarm the bombs by this type of trial and error. And then the other side would add better booby traps to stop them from succeeding. Crazy.
senortumnus 4y ago
Antipersonnel mines absolutely should have an expiry date after which they are no longer triggered by the depression of their sensor. Issue is, these things are mass manufactured and probably have some defect rate which increases with time after deployment. So they couldn’t be trusted to be ‘safe’ after expiring anyway. But still would save lives & limbs to have a mechanism like that built in.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  That’s just not how explosives work. Any detonator explosive to set of a main charge must be reliable for dozens of good reasons. Over time an as a required condition. Asking for something decays or approaches an unreliable state after time is a non-starter. Another user pointed to a basically failed electronic program, but even then, you have to detonate the mines, you can’t just disarm them and make the highly efficient explosives ready for other uses. You wouldn’t ever give your enemy deliveries of repackagable charges.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Another user pointed out [0] that such a system does exist. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33797151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33797151
  - Hithredin 4y ago
    From a strategic perspective, obsolescent mines make total sense. I wonder why it is not the norm. Country usually don't wage war just to destroy (Seeing Ukraine, not so sure anymore). But to own and use the land. This allow to keep the territory futureproof. While for the defender it's even more logic. Long live mines are only useful around long term places: military base, korean border, ...
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    So in your post to incorrect others on 'thats not how explosives work' you got absolutely everything wrong about how explosives work. Typical HN. > You wouldn’t ever give your enemy deliveries of repackagable charges. Where did you get this preposterous idea? Do you imagine a major military will send out it's soldiers to collect labdmines on purpose to dissasemble them and take out tiny amount of explosive? And after loosing dozens of soldiers and huge amount of time to get explosives of dubious age and quality, do what with it?
conradev 4y ago
A better idea is to just get rid of mines entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
- midoridensha 4y ago
  These treaties are largely useless because certain large powers refuse to sign them. Sure, it's nice if Switzerland or Norway signs such a treaty, but that doesn't exactly change anything.
  - sitic 4y ago
    Ukraine has ratified the Ottawa Treaty linked above. I'll note that it only bans the use of all non-remote-controlled anti-personnel landmines.
  - conradev 4y ago
    The US committed to the treaty with an exception for its existing use of mines between North and South Korea
SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
> I didn't know dogs were used to clear mines. I would have thought they would be too heavy to walk on mines, considering that mines can kill children, and military working dogs have a weight comparable to children. Remember that a dog almost always has two of its paws on the ground. Forgiving for dynamics, if a 50lb child is walking, it could place all 50lbs on a trigger. A 50lb dog should only be able to place 25lbs. I would think they just use smaller dogs. And maybe some do still blown up, we wouldn’t have any idea.
- BucketsMcG 4y ago
  Even a light dog can put a surprising amount of pressure through its feet if it wants to. Tiny paws mean it's all concentrated in a small area. My 10kg dog feels like he weighs a ton when he puts his front paws on me and leans into it. I've no idea what it takes to trigger a mine, and I don't know if it would be enough, but a dog can press down harder than you'd expect.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    I know what you mean, when they stand on you wrong it's surprisingly heavy. But it's point loaded. A dog doesn't do that while walking around on even-ish ground. The point is it would take unusual scenarios for a dog to get 100% of their weight on one foot, but any toddler does it every step. I would think this works both ways though. Yes, smaller surface area is bad, but also reduces the chance the dog presses down on a trigger. But then again... they have four feet, but then they a narrower track, but then they probably take more steps. It's complicated I suppose!
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Specifically anti-tank mines tend to be designed NOT to detonate with only a person walking on them, so maybe dogs are more useful for clearing those
asdff 4y ago
There should be international laws where after wartime, governments are responsible for clearing out any leftover ordinances and must perform ecological cleanup. One would think the U.S. government would be in support of this because it would make wars too cost prohibitive for other nations, and the contracts would be an excellent profitmaking opportunity for the military industrial complex.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  How exactly do you enforce such a law? If the victor refuses to follow the law, invade their country, set up a new puppet government, and put them on trial?
  - asdff 4y ago
    Sanction them until their oligarchs turn on the executive.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I don't think I've seen any examples in real life of this actually working, even though it seems to be the normal enforcement mechanism.
      - asdff 4y ago
        IMO because they don't sanction nearly enough
        dmichulke 4y ago
        With your approach there's always the risk that your sanctions are worse for the population than the consequences of the mines, particularly because economic damage is compounding. How do you deal with that?
        ChadNauseam 4y ago
aaron695 4y ago
magic_hamster 4y ago
> Millions. I can't process numbers that large. You should read about Laos then, which has the largest amount of UXOs, and specifically the consequences, and how they got there. It's infuriating.
joshuahedlund 4y ago
If you want to learn more about the mines in Camobida I highly recommend the low-budget documentary Until They're Gone[0], which features a small human-based mine removal effort promoted by Landmine Relief Fund[1]. I read an article in the Economist a couple years about the lingering impacts of mines and ordinance in Cambodia, and it struck me heavily and I looked up more information and came across those. It's horrible that all these ordinances are still maiming people decades after a war that their country was hardly even involved in, but there's also a lot of exciting work and progress being made. A mine-free Cambodia really is possible, and in not that many years! [0]http://www.untiltheyregone.com/ http://www.untiltheyregone.com/ [1]https://www.landmine-relief-fund.com/ https://www.landmine-relief-fund.com/

satvikpendem 4y ago

This being on the front page at the same time as "The Army tried to develop a missile guided by pigeons" is...interesting [0]. Looks like militaries are having fun using animals for warfare. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33779361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33779361

Semaphor 4y ago
It’s not just the military, the rats here are used by APOPO [0] a non-profit. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APOPO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APOPO
ARandomerDude 4y ago
If you think that’s wild you should hear what the cavalry used to do with horses (and sometimes still do).
hackeraccount 4y ago
Two words: Bat bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

dis-sys 4y ago

My preyer are with those brave rats who died for the peace of mankind.

derefr 4y ago
From the article: > While large for rats, they are weightless for the land mines and can walk safely across a live minefield.

asimjalis 4y ago

They should use AI driven mini robots that go around and blow up mines.

themodelplumber 4y ago
They should develop smart plants with a distributed root system, an overabundance of shoots, a preference for seeking mines, and a high threshold for shoot pain. This would also prepare us with countermeasure systems control for when the AI tries to take over.
- octodog 4y ago
  What happens when the smart plants with a high tolerance for pain start taking over?
  - haydenchambers 4y ago
- rmason 4y ago
  Smart plants that turn red when their roots reach explosives have been around for close to twenty years. Why have they not succeeded? Near as I can tell the Danish company that launched them experienced huge pushback because they were GMO's and this was the height of anti-GMO hysteria in Europe. The charities that would fund distribution wanted nothing to do with GMO plants - even if they saved lives. I found one study that said the rats were more cost effective. The seeds had to be flown over the field and a great number of them refused to germinate. Years later grass started being seeded with a moist paper mulch that contained a small amount of fertilizer. Would it work with these seeds? Far as I can tell the Danish company abandoned development of the product. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plants_that_change_color_and_mark_buried_explosives.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plants_that_change_c...
  - Nitrolo 4y ago
    That is incredible. In the literal sense of the word, I thought you were joking until I was halfway through your post. Do you have any more links? I'd love to learn more.

raisin_churn 4y ago

I would prefer to use US senators who refuse to ratify the Mine Ban Convention. They won't need any particular skills or training, just have them wander around possible UXO sites until they find one with their foot. The great thing about this is, US senators are a 100% renewable resource.

anikan_vader 4y ago
An interesting idea, although I think the US is actually ahead of the curve on mines. From Wikipedia: >> Opponents point out that the Ottawa Convention places no restriction whatsoever on anti-vehicle mines which kill civilians on tractors, on school buses, etc. The position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
- raisin_churn 4y ago
  Well, my comment was highly abbreviated for the sake of pithiness, but US ratification of the treaty would be more meaningful than the US simply not employing landmines itself. (NB While I place all the blame on senators for not ratifying it, technically no US president has signed it, so the Senate hasn't actually had the opportunity to ratify, but Senate leaders have made their opposition clear for decades so they definitely deserve the blame I'm pointing in their direction.) Furthermore, landmines haven't actually been a weapon that the US military has considered tactically useful in nearly 50 years, so saying that we won'ist use them (because they're not useful to us), but not pressuring other countries which may find them useful despite their horrific downsides, isn't exactly upstanding. And, the article title on HN is misleading, because this isn't just about landmines, it's about unexploded ordnance (UXO) more generally. The US, in addition to not signing the Mine Ban Convention, refuses to sign/ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and has significant quantities of cluster munitions in the inventory, with an alarmingly high failure rate (meaning the munition doesn't detonate when it is supposed to, leaving dangerous UXO that only becomes more dangerous over time). So, yes, there's nuance, but honestly not enough to let US leaders off the hook for these horrors.

ggm 4y ago

African giant pouched rat. Cheek pouches. (not marsupial). Poor eyesight so the sniffing is presumably evolutionary advantage for the niche they'd normally occupy. Given enough time, I wonder what other social adaptive qualities could emerge in a species like this? Domestication of dogs and cats had huge longterm upsides for both species and humans. Most rats by number are now co-occupants of human space but by species I'd be less sure. I had no idea how big the genus is until I dived into the rabbit hole. (If you like large rats, look out for the Rakali or water-rat: web footed, and quite large. They live in the lake of Canberra amongst other places. I don't think they are trainable or economically exploitable beyond nature tourism. They are very very cute. Like Otters sort-of, but .. rats) These pouched rats are very cute. And doing amazing work.

sw104 4y ago
I've owned multiple (fancy) rats as pets in my time. The species is somewhat split into domesticated and non-domesticated. My rats would probably never have survived in the wild (due to their appearance, sand/tuxedo coloured, instead of just gray/brown), and likewise wild rats wouldn't be possible to domesticate. There's quite a few videos on YouTube of the social skills they can develop. Quite amazing animals, but incredibly short lives. Most people who have them don't get new ones after the originals die because it can be so heartbreaking losing a pet every 2 years or so.
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  “My rats would probably never have survived in the wild” I remember watching a video where they released some pet rats into the wild. They adapted very quickly and did well. These little buggers are very smart.
  - grey413 4y ago
    Most domesticated animals that I can think of do just fine when they're released into the wild. In fact, I don't think there's any domesticated animals out there that don't have a feral population running around somewhere.

frereubu 4y ago

Slightly OT, but there's a great podcast about the era when these landmines were laid, In The Shadows of Utopia: https://www.shadowsofutopia.com/ https://www.shadowsofutopia.com/ The presenter takes the time to give a lot of historical context before getting into the Khmer Rouge etc. It's been a real education for me.

gbuk2013 4y ago

In addition to mine clearance, APOPO also train rats to sniff out tuberculosis in samples: https://apopo.org/what-we-do/detecting-tuberculosis/how-we-do-it/process/ https://apopo.org/what-we-do/detecting-tuberculosis/how-we-d...

mmkos 4y ago

I translated a talk about these rats once. Interestingly, they are also used to sniff out tuberculosis in people, or at least were a few years ago. :)

langsoul-com 4y ago

Wonder if other nations that have a high amount of land mines would adopt the same program? A bonus is how rats are more disposal than dogs.

lukas099 4y ago
And cost less to the organizations raising and training them.

systematical 4y ago

PBS Newshour also did a segment on this a while back if you prefer video: https://www.pbs.org/video/how-giant-african-rats-are-finding-land-mines-cambodia-kl1qg/ https://www.pbs.org/video/how-giant-african-rats-are-finding...

eknkc 4y ago

So I thought from the title that they were releasing a bunch of rats to a minefield and let them trigger the mines. But apparently mines are sensitive to much larger weights and it does not work like that. Rats are trained to sense the mines via smell. Neat.

sbaiddn 4y ago

This is a serious question: In a place like the DMZ, are mines really immoral? Are land mines universally immoral? Anymore than any other weapon of war? Does this immorality extend to naval as opposed to land mines? No one is walking freely in the DMZ. Certainly not children. If land mines are effective (US generals say no, but they don't win too many wars.) they raise the cost of attack almost for free. This stabilizes the situation avoiding what would be a devastating war. Some object that a war that gets rid of the North Korean regime is necessary and not to be avoided. I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but point out that I chose the DMZ merely as a widely known dangerous example. The example can be changed to any border dispute between two "dangerous" countries (say India and Pakistan). Nor can the "indiscriminate nature" save the argument. A cluster bomb thrown into a city is indiscriminate and a terrible thing. But the immoral act is deploying the weapon where it acts without discretion. This is no different from carpet bombing city a la WW2. So the question remains: why are land mines malum in se? And how are the uniquely evil compared to any other weapon of war? [1] [1] Im not being facetious. I believe there are inherently evil weapons, chemical or biological ones come to mind, while other weapons have, if not a nobility to them, are not inherently evil: the rifle.

penneyd 4y ago
Land mines persist long after the wars have ended, quietly waiting to maim the innocent.
- sbaiddn 4y ago
  Ok, thats a strong argument. But, Im not convinced. For starters, if we assume humans have the ability to solve conflicts like the DMZ we should be able to put a structure in place to prohibit people from going to old mine fields. That is, fundamentally, the basis of nuclear waste storage: the belief that society can create a future political structure to keep humans out of a dangerous place. (I doubt that we can, so Im opposed to nuclear power, and I'll grant that it follows that this is an argument against mines.) Im not arguing that land mines should be used liberally over large swaths of land. The DMZ is a narrow strip of land. If the Korean dispute ever ends (I have my doubts), it can be made into a nature preserve. Or it can be carefully de-mined over centuries like Europe has been since the wars. Continental Europeans have lived and worked around unstable explosives for over 100 years. And, as long lasting as land mines are, its not obvious to me that our conflicts can not outlast them (!! I do have faith in our obstinacy). The Korean war is 70 years old, the DMZ is not a dry desert (some border regions are, however). Eventually the materials will crumble and nature will take over. Finally, the basic question remains unanswered: are the (relatively rare) loss of life and limbs of innocents over decades or centuries worse that a war like the one that would break out between the Koreas? That's not obvious to me.