It is estimated that landmines kill 20,000 a year with 23% of all casualties being children.

This news is about 10 years old but not many people know about it.

Scientists have successfully altered the DNA of a bacterium that causes it to glow when it eats trinitrotoluene (TNT) and you will never believe how they did it. They extracted the natural DNA in a jellyfish that causes the jellyfish to glow under ultra-violet light and used it to replaced the bacterium’s digestive system. So when the bacterium ingest the TNT residue (that soaks up through the soil from landmines over time), instead of triggering its digestive system it triggers the glowing gene. Using an airplane to spread the bacteria over a field and then passing over at night with a ultraviolet light will be the only the broad area detection method available at the current time. It can pinpoint the mines to within 50 centimeters (the TNT doesn’t always travel in a straight line up to the topsoil), easily showing the clear, safe areas of a field or road. The preliminary tests sponsored by the US Military went better than anyone expected. The detection bacteria located 5 out of 5 mines in a fake mine field. This system can also be used to find technically anything you want. There are always bacteria that love eating a certain substance, so just splice in the glowing DNA with that particular bacteria to replace their digestive system and you are off to the races. Experiments have been done using honey bees for detection purposes. Bring the hive to a suspected location and coat the bees with the bacteria and check to see if the bacteria is glowing when the bees return Considering bee’s stay within a half mile of the hive it would make finding the mind field a simple task.