Terrorism Fighting Fish

Maybe terrorism “detecting” fish would be more accurate, but detection is part of the fight against terrorism. I wonder what PETA thinks of this.

A type of fish so common that practically every American kid who ever dropped a fishing line and a bobber into a pond has probably caught one is being enlisted in the fight against terrorism.

San Francisco, New York, Washington and other big cities are using bluegills – also known as sunfish or bream – as a sort of canary in a coal mine to safeguard their drinking water.

Small numbers of the fish are kept in tanks constantly replenished with water from the municipal supply, and sensors in each tank work around the clock to register changes in the breathing, heartbeat and swimming patterns of the bluegills that occur in the presence of toxins.

“Nature’s given us pretty much the most powerful and reliable early warning center out there,” said Bill Lawler, co-founder of Intelligent Automation Corporation, a Southern California company that makes and sells the bluegill monitoring system. “There’s no known manmade sensor that can do the same job as the bluegill.”Read the article. It is actually pretty interesting how the system came about and how it is implemented.

White House To Revise Terrorist Interrogation Proposal
Remember -- The Anthrax Attacks

5 Comments

  1. Synova September 19, 2006
  2. y7 September 19, 2006
  3. Heralder September 19, 2006
  4. Matt September 19, 2006
  5. The Random Yak September 19, 2006