Mar 6 2008 Bee's Project Art Exhibit Detects Diseases
MOMA Online has an exhibit entitled Design and the Elastic Mind which is a bunch of different projects combining art and science. The Bee's Project is one of these. Basically it consists of a number of glass vessels with bees inside. Taking advantage of a bee's highly sophisticated sense of smell, they are trained to detect different diseases, from cancer to pregnancy (which, in my wife's case, IS a disease). If the bees sense a certain odor when a user blows into the device they will fly into a corresponding chamber, indicating the presence of whatever disease they've been trained to detect. Or if you have shit-breath then the bees all congregate in the bottom. You know, because you killed them all.
A couple more pictures and a link to the exhibit after the jump.
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Sep 13 2007 Bees Sniff Bombs, Make Explosive Honey
A company called Inscentinel Ltd. has developed Vapor Detection Instrumentation, which is scientific speak for a couple bees taped to a piece of foam. The bees stick out their tongues when they smell an odor they have been trained to detect. They have been tested on explosives, drugs, counterfeit goods, food quality, and even cancer. I guess it is pretty neat stuff they're doing there, but I can't help but feel sorry for those little bastards taped up in there looking all cute and cuddly. It does say though that "Bees are happy undertaking their sniffing tasks and are comfortable throughout." I'm just curious what metrics were used to determine the level of bee happiness while working. "Hey little guys you happy in there?" "Bzzzzzzzz" "See, totally happy."
UPDATE: For anyone concerned about the poor bees, according to the company "After their working shift the bees are returned to their hive where they happily live out the rest of their lives and are integrated back into the hive." See, sometimes life does have a happy ending, just not in my case.
A couple more pictures after the jump.
