Meet HeroRATs: They can detect landmines! 

Human history is punctuated with innumerable wars. The wars during the post-industrial revolution have involved heavy, explosive armamentarium. But did you know that a lot of these explosives have not been nuked. They have been lying dormant on our Earth, at the risk of explosion. These land mines and unexploded ordinances continue to threaten more than 60 million people in 59 different nations, suggest estimates. It is a difficult and risky task to find these hidden explosives. People who use metal detectors put their lives in danger and work slowly, pausing after each suspicious ping. Bart Weetjens, a Belgian product developer and the founder of APOPO, a Belgian non-profit organisation, recognised this issue and thought of utilising the huge African pouched rats as mine detection animals for Africa. Yes, rats, you read that right!  

Why are rats chosen? 
The eyesight of rats is very poor. But what makes them ideal for detecting explosives is the fact that their superb sense of smell and their size. This an essential attribute to sniff the explosive TNT found in landmines. Additionally, they are light weight (1-2 kg) which takes away the risk of triggering the explosives that they detect. What’s more, a single HeroRAT can search an area the size of a tennis court in thirty minutes, while a human may need up to four days to do the same job. 

Training the HeroRats 
When they spot a mine, the rats scratch atop it. This is the signal to the handler that they've found it. After this, human de-miners mark the spot returning later to excavate. If they find the landmine, they blow it on site. But the African rodents need to undergo rigorous training for this specialised task. The training begins at about 6 weeks of age and lasts for about nine months. It’s a three-tier process. The first part of the training is dedicated to teach rats learn to interact with humans. This is followed by a lesson on responding to a click sound which is rewarded with food. As the rats are incapable of picking up verbal cues, this part of the training aims to teach them that they should associate this clicker sound with a food reward. This is geared towards motivating them to carry out trained actions like sniffing out the target scent. The last leg of training includes hooking them up to harnesses and helping them walk on a rope grid in the field.