Extra credit rat with a rat packpack PDF

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Zoe Beard Extra Credit

They trained the rats in a very simple way to find and sniff out land mines. A trained operator has the rat on a long pole with a harness on them. The rat makes all the turns itself and the operator does not move the rat, the rat completely chooses where to go all by itself. Then when the rat finds a land mine, they scratch the soil indicating to the operator where the land mine is. Then, the animals comes back for a food reward. They taught the rat at first with associating a clicking noise to food. They would go click, food, click, food, click, food, etc. Then, the rats would heard click and they would have to put their noses through a hole to smell for five seconds, then they would get the food. Then they made it harder, there were tens holes and the rat had to sniff out the scent and hold it’s nose in the hold for 5 seconds. Then, the learn to find real mines in real fields. Tuberculosis is an infectious bacterial disease that is characterized by the growth of nodes, tubercles, in the tissues, mainly in the lungs. In Dutch, tuberculosis refers to the ‘smell of tar’. Luckily, it is treatable. The rats are placed in a clear box and they are given ten samples. One of them, is positive for tuberculosis. They will go and sniff every sample and stop on the positive one and start digging. Once they are done, they will run down to the experimenter, and receive food. They can do this very quickly and are used as a second opinion to medical professionals. A microscopist can look through 40 samples a day, a rat can process those 40 samples in only 7 minutes. It is much more efficient and accurate. In order to make sure the rats are correct they standardize, or control, this process. The rats must stick their noses in the hole for a minimum of five seconds. Also, the pellets of food are controlled....