Rats were the unlikely hero to save the day in Africa when a group of the tiny rodents found undiscovered land mines and tuberculosis.
The rats are part of non-profit organization Apopo, which trains rats using positive reinforcement to sniff out explosives, reported ABC.net.au. The training lasts for several months. When rats pass the training they become accredited as HeroRats.
Rats are especially useful in detecting land mines because they are too small to set off explosives, yet they have a keen enough smell to notice if something is there.
"It's an awful issue, the landmines. It affects everything in development," Bart Weetjens, founder of Apopo, told ABC.net.au. "When you travel in landmine-affected countries you may notice that big areas, villages, agriculture ground, infrastructure is totally abandoned for decades and people are seeking refuge in refugee camps and informal settlements. Landmines pose structural barriers to any development."
The HeroRats successfully learned to detect tuberculosis in a similar way after perfecting their ability to detect land mines, Weetjens told ABC.net.au.
He said the rats are 40 percent more successful at detecting tuberculosis than humans with a microscope.
