ROUSes?

Great, now even midgets are being put out of work.

Paging PETA. After the bonsaikitten link, I can see this is going to be a banner day on Fark!

/I love animals, they're delicious!

am I the only one who when they thought the article was about griefing?

/lets train rats on that gimp ass noob.

The SOP when stepping on a land mine is to leap 30 feet into the air and spread yourself over a wide area.

/Blackadder

uhh, the land mines go BOOM, the rats apparently go splat !

"Rats have a very strong sense of smell, which assists them to trace the scent of explosives," he said.

They dropped "Besides, they're rats for Pete's sake. Who cares if they blow up?"

what do scients have against the Africans? Just another example of the MAN keeping the Africans down!

Wasn't this briefly mentioned in West Wing 1 or 2 episodes ago? Mine-sniffing dogs get bored and the rats are easier to train/replace?

Wonder if giant, New York subway rats could do the same thing?

RTFA, the rats are too light to set off the mines -- no boom, no splat. Pretty cool.

headline deja vu?

Boomtown Rats?

Do they know it's Christmas?

There are very few land mines in New York City. Hmm...

... I just hope they didn't test on animals!

Wonder if giant, New York subway rats could do the same thing?
I'm sure Jason Giambi doesn't appreciate you calling him that...

land mines are terribl .... y efficient.

/land mines suck

Great headline, submitter, it elicited a chuckle :)

Some Cheerleader "I love hamsters"
Me "Me too, we must exchange recipes"

/no not really.

When you step on a landmine, standard procedure is to jump 200 feet in the air, and scatter yourself over a large area

I seem to recall reading this a while back-- Old news new source? If I post something about OBL being last seen in Tora Bora can I get a link green-lighted too?

I keed-- well, not too much

Your rat wants asplosives.

/seriously, land mines are a bad idea

I found this little dog in Mexico and brought it home. When I got it home...

Excellent headline. And the rat in the article pic is pretty odd looking. Can't imagine coming across one of those.

"Unlike mine-sniffing dogs, which easily get bored or by mistake get blown up"

Well I for one am incredibly relieved to hear that it's by mistake, and here I was thinking that the poor asploding pooches were suicidal.

They also could use Siberian hamsters.....

/BASIL!

SPEAK!

Kre-rist! Did you see the pics?

Those rats are the size of small dogs.

//I think my neighbor is breeding them.

I like DARPA's self-healing minefield

/DARPA gets all the fun toys

That was the biggest rat I've ever seen. Whoa.

They should force the executives of the companies that manufacture the mines to go find them. Kills two birds with one stone, so to speak.

We're already developing teeny little land mines to blow up the rats before they get to the proper land mines that blow up people and tanks.

And now it turns out that they're developing fleas that search for the anti rat mines.

Landmines are the best static defense possible. When i was stationed in korea it was the only thing keeping about 1 million pissed off N koreans and there chinese allies from wiping us off the face of the earth....not that it wouldnt of happend anyways if they came across but at least we would of got a few of them with us.They allow a small group of ppl to defend a large space. BTW are briefing at Camp Casey was that we were preaty much there to scream help and die in place. Land mines aint preaty but they are effective and in war thats what you want. ppl who say they need to ban landmines either need to grab a gun and guard the perimeter that they just opened up or shut the hell up. Your choice.

Those african rats can be dangerous... If you ask me they are doing a favor...

ArcadianRefugee

While the general concept of that is damn scary- I laughed my ass off when the mines started jumping around. :P

Those african rats can be dangerous... If you ask me they are doing a favor...

more information:

http://www.apopo.org/whyrats/index.html

unyon
Napalm is called Mark 77 now & it's still being used by the US.

Your rat a splode.

Great headline, submitter. Audible laughing in lab = funny looks from co-workers = awesome.

Rats don't demand as much affection as dogs?! Bullshiat! I've got a pet rat, and if I blow a kiss to my hubby I end up w/ Libby glued to my face demanding one too.

But I can put her in a cage when I'm done.

Ashyukun

Heh, yeah. I guess making 'em six-leggers )which could fold away 'neath the unit) would probably be a better bet, and even creepy for enemy troops seeing it.

As far as scary, remember that they ARE "intelligent", and communicate, so I am guessing that unlike traditional anti-personnel mines, they can be coded to self-destruct for when given a coded signal. That way they can be safely removed after the conflict is over. (Heck, even simply de-activated and made to give off a quiet signal to help locate them, so they can be collected for reuse elsewhere.)