By: Rosemary Stephen PMed, (cert) EOH, IPM, Elements: Environmental Health Intelligence
When I was doing research for this blog, I was not sure what information I would find; aside from lab animals like mice and rats are there instances where animals and insects are used to protect people from hazardous tasks? Everyone has heard about canaries in mines, but are other Occupational Health and Safety animal aides ? Well I can now say that yes — animals and insects are not only used in labs, but also in many situations, especially in a military sphere, where it would be dangerous for humans to work….
Military Occupational Health and Safety Animals
Land Mine Detecting Rats
In At Your Service Part I, we introduced the Gambian pouch rat (Cricetomys gambianus), a large muriod rodent native to Senegal, Central Sudan and South Africa [1]. They have been trained to detect Tuberculosis from saliva samples with an accuracy and speed that makes this rat a great asset for medical laboratories in developing countries. Gambian pouch rats have, however, also proven to be very versatile as they are now being trained to detect land mines. A Belgian demining company tested the sniffing ability of this little creature in Mozambique. Training started by feeding pouch rats small amounts of explosive mixed in with their food. Smelling and tasting this tainted food impressed the rats to associate the smell of explosives with food [2]. Whenever they detect mines, the rats are rewarded with banana chunks, a treat they particularly like.
Weighing in at only 9 pounds (4.08 Kg), the Gambian pouch rat is the perfect animal for finding land mines because their light weight does not trigger explosions [3]. Dogs and humans frequently trigger land mines because of their weight; these explosions too often kill, or severely injure, them.
The African Pouch rat’s contribution to Occupational Health and Safety resides in the fact that they can prevent unnecessary human exposure to the dangers of demining without risking themselves.
European Glow Worm (Lampyris noctiluca)
“Of course, we are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow worm” [4, 5, 6]. This quotation dates to 1907 during an animated diner where Winston Churchill (1F), then deputy of Manchester North West, [7] turned the conversation to politics. He used this analogy to explain that, like a glowworm, he believed that he was a leader of men illuminating the correct path forward. But what does this quote have to do with Occupational Health and Safety?
The glowworm is one of the many species of fireflies, genus Lampyris, whose ancestors existed 30 million years ago. They belong to a group of insects that consists of two thousands species having the ability to produce a flashing display of yellow-green light. This light display is produced by females to lure males into mating. Glowworms are different than your average firefly because they produce a constant glow, not a flickering light [8].
Glowworms have a two year life cycle. Once female larvae are sexually mature at two years of age, they emerge in summer months and begin to glow when the darkness that surrounds them is below 1 Lux [9]. The glow comes from the females’ photogenic organs located in the last three segments of the abdomen. This glow can be seen at a distance of more than 15 feet (5m). They tend to glow for two to three hours usually beginning between ten and eleven o’clock in the evening. Females will glow every night for two weeks or until they mate [10].
Today we know that this yellow-green glow is caused by the reaction of two substances: the biological pigment luciferin and the oxidative enzyme luciferase [11]. The glow is created when “lucerifin (a waste product) reacts with atmospheric oxygen with the help of an enzyme luciferase” [12]. In 1922, Dr. A. Newton Harvey of Princeton was the first researcher to isolate luceferin. He did so while studying tiny crustaceans called ostracods (ostracodes) harvested in the Sea of Japan [13].
The glow worm’s contribution to Occupational Health and Safety dates back to WW1. It was not unusual during that war for soldiers on night sorties to read maps by the yellow-green light of glow worms [14]. How many glow worms did these soldiers need to read a map ? This fact has not been recorded, so to answer this we again turn to the work of Dr. Harvey as ostracods and glow worms have similar bioluminescence abilities. Dr. Harvey was able to measure the light emitted from the 2 mm long ostracods at “one thousand part of a candle power” [15, 16]. Since the adult female of Lampyris noctiluca can measure up to 25mm in length, we can estimate that the female glow worm emits 0.0125 candlepower (3F). Knowing that one candle power is equal to 12.57 lumens [17, 4F), we can assume that one female glowworm produces 0.157125 lumens. Since one lumen is equal to one foot candle [18, 5F) illumination falling on a square foot area, the amount of light falling on a map from a single female would be equivalent to 0.16 foot candle -- a bit less illumination that a full moon [19] — or around 1.6 Lux. It would require approximately 10 female glowworms to give the equivalent of around 1.6 fc, the equivalent of light that illuminates roadways in commercial areas [20], to allow soldiers to read a map.
Bees (Apis mellifera)
Trying to discover the location of land mines is very dangerous. In the past 10 years, 73,576 people in 119 countries have died from land mine explosions [21]. In 2005, Research Professor Jerry Bromenshenk and his colleagues from the University of Montana at Missoula announced that they have been training honeybees to detect mines [22]. Bees, surprisingly, can learn to recognize the odor of trace amounts of explosive elements such as trinitrotoluene (TNT)(6F) in just one to two days [23]. They are first trained to forage from feeders which contain the target chemical [24]. Once acclimatised to the smell, bees associate the land mines with food sources. Bees have a high odor sensitivity in the parts per trillion range and so they have a mine detection accuracy of 98% [25]. When bees detect the odor of explosives, they follow the odor plume back to its source and briefly swam over the mine.
A small swam of bees may be hard to detect so researchers from Montana State University, along with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Technology Laboratory (Boulder, CO) [26], have developed an horizontal scanning LIDAR system to detect bee swarms [27]. Unfortunately, bees fly close to the ground and hover over a mine for just a few seconds which can make them hard to detect with the LIDAR, so Professor Bromenshenk and his colleagues are presently working to resolve these issues [28].
In 2006, scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, published the results from training bees to stick out their proboscis (7F) when they smell explosives. The project was called the “Stealthy Insect Sensor Project”. Bees were trained using a Pavlovian technique [29]; they were harnessed inside a box and exposed to the smell of explosives while being rewarded with sugar water. Once trained, bees will stick out their proboscis when they detect substances like dynamite, C-4 plastic explosives and howitzer propellant grain [30, 31]. Because of their small size, these trained bees can be carried in “shoe box size containers and can be used to detect explosives in airports, roadside security checks or even be placed inside robot bomb disposal equipment”. After the recent aborted terrorist attempt on Delta Airlines in Detroit on 27 December 2009, there is a renewed interest in explosives detecting bees. It is possible that in the near future, security guards working in airports or other transportation facilities will be trained to work with bees. This type of detection could save the lives of security guards, members of bomb squads or other personal involved in the detection of explosives [32].
Spiders
Spiders produce silk thread that is extremely light, fine — only 1/200th of a millimeter in diameter [33] – and has the tensile strength superior to that of high-grade steel [34]. Spider silk has played an important role in sighting instruments since the 17th century when Robert Hooke, a British natural philosopher invented the reticle or cross hairs (8F). Silks threads from cocoons spun during warm weather were used in the eye piece of instruments used for surveying, astronomy and then telescopic gun sights [35]. Threads were cut into strands and positioned into the characteristic cross shape before they were installed in the scopes. The reticle increased the accuracy of measurements. Hooke’s telescope, equipped with cross hairs, allowed him to detect the rotation of Jupiter and Mars as well as discover Jupiter’s Great Red Spot [36, 37].
The process of creating a reticle was quite delicate. Spider silk strands were first stretched over a notched ring to form a cross and then they were secured in place with gum, varnish or beeswax [38]. Once the silk was secured, the sight could be incorporated into the eye piece of the instrument.
Spiders’ contribution to occupational Health and Safety occurred mostly during WWII. The spider silk used for making cross hairs allowed soldiers to “estimate the range to objects of known size, the size of objects at known distances, and even roughly compensate for both bullet drop (cause by gravity), and wind drifts at known ranges with a reticle-equipped scope” [39, 9F] preventing unnecessary accidents and loss of life through improved accuracy.
Dogs in space: Laika’s legacy
Three year old Laika (meaning ‘barker‘ in Russian) was a Russian breed of Spitz weighing approximately 11 to 13 lbs (5 to 6 kg). She was found wandering the streets of Moscow and was sent to Russia’s space mission headquarters for training. Laika was trained at the same time as two other dogs — Albina, who flew twice on high altitude rocket tests, and Mushka who was used to test instrumentation and life support systems [40, 41]. All three dogs were trained to be comfortable in the confined space of Sputnik 2.
According to Dr. Malashenkov, of the Institute for Biological Problems in Moscow, the dogs were gradually accustomed to the small size of the Sputnik 2 cabin, by being placed into ever smaller cages every 15 to 20 days. Laika was also exposed to a centrifuge machine (10F) to test her reactions and vital signs. Laika was launched into space on 03 November 1957 in a metal sphere weighing about 18 kg (40 Lbs) [42].When she was launched, she became the first living being to orbit the earth.
Sputnik 2 was equipped with a carbon dioxide absorbing device as well as an oxygen generator. Laika’s food was in the form of jelly and to prevent her from turning around inside the cabin, she was attached to a frame. At lift off, her pulse rate went up by a factor of three to four times above resting level (from 103 to 240 beats per minutes) [43] and at three hours after the start of weightlessness, her pulse rate decreased to 102 beats per minutes [44, 45]. Unfortunately, Laika died five to seven hours into the flight. The cause of her death was attributed to overheating and stress, but in 2002, the official version mentioned that “Block A”, a section of the space craft, lost some thermal insulation when Sputnik 2 did not separate as planed. This caused the temperature inside the cabin to rise to 40° C (104° F) suffocating Laika [46].
Although Laika did not survive the mission, her contribution to astronauts’ occupational health and safety resides in proving that a living, breathing organism could survive the demands of space flight. It also allowed researchers to obtain specific information on what type of bodily reactions can occur while in space [47, 48]. Today, astronauts are trained to understand signs and symptoms triggered by weightlessness. We know now that astronauts experience physiological changes similar to those of aging. Astronauts may experience motion sickness, space sniffles, changes in blood pressure, muscle atrophy and bone loss that are comparable to what elderly people experience. These transient physiological reactions are part of the normal adjustment process that all astronauts go through while in space [49].
Primates and radiation
In space, we know that solar flares (11F) and cosmic rays (12F) are forms of radiation that are harmful to astronauts. It is known that cosmic rays can penetrate 10 to 20 feet (3m to 6m) into solid matter such as soil, rock, metal and concrete [50, 51]. Beyond the earth’s magnetic field, solar flares and cosmic rays do not follow a specific pattern, but come from all directions making it harder for NASA to predict what type of penetrating effect these rays will have on the human body.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958. They were soon confronted the problem of predicting what dangers lay beyond earth. Experiments simulating radiation exposure were carried out on rats and mice. These results, however, proved to be irrelevant to humans due to numerous physiological differences. NASA had to find another animal species that would give researchers valid information on physiological adverse effects that could be applied to humans; they selected primates because primate are closely related to humans (Chimpanzees share about 98.6% of our DNA structure) [52, 53]. NASA first obtained chimpanzees from 
Cameroon, raised them and conducted G-force and microgravity experiments. Two chimps from the original group of 17 became internationally known: Ham and Enos. Ham when up in space in a Mercury Redstone rocket in January 31, 196. Later in November of the same year, Enos orbited earth twice before his premature return to the ground due to bad weather.
Primates contribution to Occupational Health and Safety comes from paving the way for man to explore space. NASA was able to predict from these experiments, what could happen to humans exposed to space travel. Cell DNA damage is one adverse effect. Solar flares and cosmic rays cause cells to multiply abnormally and to loose their ability to repair themselves possibly inducing cancer [54]. We know now that the negative effect of cosmic rays is not uniform [55]. At the moment, radiation exposure limits are set by gender: “ for 30-year-old astronauts, the maximum allowable mission length for a female is set at 54 days and reaches 91 days for male spaceflyers,… by age 55, the total days in space max out at 159 days for female astronauts and 268 days for their male counterparts” [56].
NASA has recently announced that they will resume radiation exposure experiments on primates to pave the way for human flight set for the Moon and Mars. NASA will be using Harvard’s McLean Hospital in Belmont to carry out these controversial tests on 28 spider monkeys. The monkeys will be exposed to radiation doses equivalent to what humans would be exposed to during the expected 3 year long space travel required to go to Mars [57, 58]. On long space flights, astronauts could be exposed to nearly the life time limit of radiation allowed here on earth. NASA suspects that adverse ill effects could include cancer, premature aging and cognitive decline [59].
Dolphins and human activities
Dolphins have interacted with human marine activities for eons and today many fisherman around the world rely on dolphins to help bring fish into their nets. In India, in the Chilika lagoon, for example, small communities have created a mutual relationship with Irrawaddy dolphins. In the past, fishermen only had to call the dolphin to help move fish into their nets, but now, because of marine 
activity and tourism, the number of Irrawaddy dolphins has declined to the point where this mutual relationship has practically ceased [60]. At the moment, this area of India is teaching their youth the importance of protecting the Irrawaddy dolphins to bring back this relationship.
The interaction with dolphins is not unique to helping fishermen. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) was created in 1960 to see if trained marine animals could be used for military purposes. After testing more than 19 different marine species in defense and mine detection, the NMMP selected the bottlenose dolphins and the sea lions. Bottlenose dolphins have a highly evolved biosonar (echolocation) (14F) which is capable of detecting underwater mines. The sea lion has an excellent underwater vision which helps detect enemy swimmers as well as marking and retrieving objects of interest [61]. Dolphins and sea lions are easily trained by conditioning. This conditioning consist of rewarding the animal when the correct responses is given and ignoring the animal completely for incorrect responses. Dolphins and sea lions have also adapted well to transport vehicles such as ships, aircraft, helicopters, and land vehicles, so they can be deployed in as little as 72 hours [62].
Today, dolphins and sea lions assist divers in many underwater tasks. Their contribution to Occupational Health and Safety resides in their ability to make repeated deep sea dives; humans doing these same tasks could suffer from decompression sickness (15F) or arterial gas embolism (AGE) (16F). Dolphins and sea lions save many human lives because their bodies are more suitable for prolonged, deep dives, colder water temperature, strenuous physical activity underwater and rapid ascent.
Conclusion
Gambian pouch rats , glow worms, bees, spiders, dogs, primates, dolphins and sea lions either now contribute, or have contributed in the past, to making the human workplace safer. Using Gambian Pouch rats for demining purposes has numerous advantages over dogs and humans; pouch rats only weigh about 9 pounds (4.08 Kg) which is not enough to trigger an explosion when they walk over buried mines. Bees have been studied to see if they could detect explosive elements in mine field, airports, roadside security checks or even inside robot bomb disposal equipment. The results of these experiments have proven that bees are capable of being trained to finding hidden explosives. The recent terrorist attempt on board Delta Airlines at Detroit had resulted in a renewed interest in training security guards to work with bees to detect explosives in public transportation areas.
Glow worms are now in decline in parts of Europe, but during WWI, thanks to their yellow-green glow caused by the reaction of luciferin and luciferase, soldiers could see in the dark. Although not specifically recorded, it seems likely that WWI soldiers needed approximately10 female glow worms to read maps when no other light sources were available, or safe, to use.
It took Robert Hooke’s interest in astronomy to turn the silk thread of spiders into a tool for increasing the accuracy of sighting devices such as surveying equipment, telescopes and even gun sights. The reticule sight vastly improved accuracy, helping launch a scientific revolution and creating a safer environment on the battle field between friendly forces.
Space exploration has seen numerous improvements since its beginning. Different species of animals have played significant roles in the advancement of space travel. Laika’s legacy was to prove to the world that a living breathing organism could survive the demands of space launch and flight as well as adapt to weightlessness. Primates, especially chimpanzees, were subjected to numerous radiation experiments. They were also exposed to G-forces and microgravity experiments which proved to NASA that space travel was possible if appropriate training, shielding and exposure limits for astronauts were implemented.
Marine animals such as dolphins and sea lions have become essential partners for human naval missions. Thanks to Bottlenose dolphins’ biosonar and sea lions’ excellent underwater vision, mines and foreign objects are easily detected, marked and retrieved. The ability of these marine animals to stay under water for prolong periods and to ascend rapidly without suffering from decompression sickness or arterial gas embolism makes them assets in the prevention and protection of humans from accidents and death.
Rosemary Stephen PMed, (cert) EOH, IPM (2010). At Your Service…. Part III Elements: Environmental Health Intelligence
References:
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Photograph Credit:
Lampyris noctiluca glow worm. (On-line) Available http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lampyris_noctiluca_glow_worm.jpg
Referenced Endnotes
(1F) Winston Churchill: British politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955. He was granted the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 (8F)
Sir Winston Churchill Master of Courage (1959) (On-line) Available: http://www.archive.org/stream/sirwinstonchurch007912mbp/sirwinstonchurch007912mbp_djvu.txt. Cited 2009 Dec 07.
(2F) Lux: A standard for measuring light, The amount of light per square meter, incident on a surface. 1 lux = 1 lumen/square meter = 0.093 footcandles.
Lux (2010) Glossary, Projection design ®. (On-line) Available: http://www.projectiondesign.com/Default.asp?CatID=1438. Cited 2010 Jan 11.
(3F) Candle Power: measurement how much light is produced by a light source.
Bryant, R. H. Lumens, Illuminance, More Confusion! Candelpower! (2009) The LED Light.com. (On-line) Available: http://www.theledlight.com/lumens.html. Cited 2009 Dec 23.
(4F) Lumens: the measurement of light output. For example, when you purchase a 60-watt incandescent bulb, you are getting about 800 lumens.
Bryant, R. H. Lumens, Illuminance, More Confusion! Candelpower! (2009) The LED Light.com. (On-line) Available: http://www.theledlight.com/lumens.html. Cited 2009 Dec 23.
(5F) Footcandle: A unit of measure of luminance. A unit of luminance on a surface that is one foot from a uniform point source of light of one candle and equal to one lumen per square foot. Footcandle values can be measured directly with hand held incident light meters.
Panayotova, T. Lighting Illumination Levels (2010) Facilities Planning Construction, University of Florida. (On-line) Available: http://www.facilities.ufl.edu/cp/pdf/Lighting%20Illumination%20levels.pdf. Cited 2010 Jan 11.
(6F) Trinitrotoluene: it is an important chemically unstable explosive that quickly changes from a solid into hot expanding gases. It is used to propel a projectile, such as a bullet from a gun, or for demolition purposes.
An explosive Material (2010) Trinitrotoluene – TNT. (On-line) Available: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/vchemlib/mim/bristol/tnt/tnt_text.htm. Cited 2010 Jan 11.
(7F) Proboscis: a long, slender, hairy tongue that acts as a straw to bring the liquid food (nectar, honey and water) to the mouth. When in use, the tongue moves rapidly back and forth while the flexible tip performs a lapping motion. After feeding, the proboscis is drawn up and folded behind the head.
The Honey Bee Body (2010) Information Sheet 2. (On-line) Available: http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/ahb/inf2.html. Cited 2010 Jan 05.
(8F) Crosshairs: either of two fine mutually perpendicular lines that cross in the focus plane of an optical instrument and are used for sighting or calibration.
Crosshair (2009) Answers.com (On-line) Available: http://www.answers.com/topic/crosshair. Cited 2009 Dec 10.
(9F) Reticle-equipped scope: it is a device used to give more accuracy in instruments such as surveying equipment, telescopes and guns. Reticles come in two designs: wire and etched. The oldest type of reticles were initially made from spider silk, but with time, they were replaced with metal wires.
Grable, K. Rifle Scopes – Wire or Etched Reticles? (2010) SearchWarp.com. (On-line) Available: http://searchwarp.com/swa340127.htm. Cited 2010 Jan 13.
(10F) Centrifuge Machine: in the early part of the space program, these mechanical devices were used to train pilots and future astronauts. It was an oblong metal sphere (gondola) attached to a 50 foot long arm. “ The dual-gimballed gondola, mounted to the arm on rotating bearings, allowed the test subject to be oriented in various positions relative to the applied G force. Simply by turning the gondola as it spun about the arm, experimenters could subject pilots to positive Gs (“eyeballs in,” with acceleration in a head-to-foot direction), negative (“eyeballs out,” foot-to-head, similar to a rapidly descending elevator), transverse (chest to back), and practically every other variation that might be experienced during flight.”
Wolverton, M. The G Machine (2007) Air & Space. (On-line) Available: http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/16046272.html. Cited 2010 Jan 13.
(11F) Solar Flare: a sudden eruption of intense high-energy radiation from the sun’s surface; associated with sunspots and radio interference.
Solar Fare (2010) WordNet Search (On-line) Available: http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=solar%20flare. Cited 2010 Jan 05.
(12F) Cosmic Rays: Cosmic rays are tiny particles, mostly protons, that slam into the Earth’s atmosphere at various levels of energy. Billions of cosmic rays slam into the Earth every second, most of them with a quite low energy.
What are cosmic rays (2010) WiseGeek. (On-line) Available: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-cosmic-rays.htm. Cited 2010 Jan 05.
(13F) Earth Magnetic Field: it is a gigantic magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, and acts like a force field, protecting the planet and all the life that exists on earth from space radiation.
Universe Today (2009) (On-line) Available: http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/earths-magnetic-field/. Cited 2010 Jan 05.
(14F) Biosonar (echolocation): is a short pulse of sound used by echolocating animals to probe its environment. Most of the sounds are ultrasonic, so humans cannot hear them.
Biosonar Signals (2010) Biosonar, Seeing with sound. (On-line) Available: http://www.biosonar.bris.ac.uk/chapters/1/start1.htm. Cited 2010 Jan 05.
(15F) Decompression Sickness: is a medical condition which manifests in people who have undergone rapid decompression, for example, it affects divers who ascend to the surface too quickly. As the pressure around a body increases, the levels of dissolved gases in the blood increases. When the pressure decreases rapidly, these dissolved gases turn into bubbles in the blood, rather than dissipating naturally through the lungs. These bubbles cause a variety of health problems. Nitrogen is the most abundant dissolved gas, so the bubbles involved in decompression sickness are typically nitrogen bubbles. Also referred to as DCS, decompression illness, the bends, diver’s sickness, or caisson sickness.
What is decompression sickness? (2010) WiseGeek. (On-line) Available: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-decompression-sickness.htm. Cited 2010Jan 05.
(16F) Arterial Gas Embolism: It is a serious condition where deep sea divers, during their ascent, will surface without exhaling thereby causing any air trapped in the lungs to expand and rupture lung tissue. Gas bubbles also enter the arterial circulation and possibly lodge in the brain, blocking small arteries.
Thalmann, E.D. Dr. Decompression Illness: What Is It and What Is The Treatment? (2004) Diving Medicine Articles, Divers Alert Network. (On-line) Available: http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/articles/article.asp?articleid=65. Cited 2010 Jan 13.
