Biological detector

Chemical. Exquisitely sensitive chemical agent sensors are available, but work best under laboratory conditions. Environmental chemical sensors suffer many of the same issues as biological detectors. They lack sensitivity, are not sufficiently mobile or flexible, and require trained users. Several types of chemical detectors are in use and are mentioned above. 

VJ To answer the question as a gut reaction just this More and more biological detectors like bees, elephants, and others that I know less about are shown to be viable detectors. In all cases the best practical results are achieved by the addition of a scientific enhancement like an electronic eye to observe the bee s proboscis flick in and out, or the satellite thermal imager tracing elephants on the move. And then there are, of course, filters to help dogs and rats. 

Pablos, V., Fernandez, C., Valdovinos, C., Castano, A., Munoz, M.J. and Tarazona, J.V. (1996) Use of ecotoxicity tests as biological detectors of toxic chemicals in the environmental analysis of complex sewages, Toxicology Letters 88 (Supplement 1), 82-82. 

In addition to canines, other animal and plant species and enzymatic technology have been proposed as alternative methods of biological explosive detectors. Most of the proposed alternatives are still in their infancy or have been shown to have sufficient shortcoming such that canine detection is still the only widely employed biological method for detecting explosives. Some of the proposed alternative biological detectors are discussed in this section. 

B. Ilic, D. Czaplewski, H.G. Craighead, P. Neuzil, C. Campagnolo and C. Batt, Mechanical resonant immunospecific biological detector, Appl. Phys. Lett., 77 (2000) 450-452. 

There are currently no highly reliable in situ biological detectors that could be used to increase the accuracy of dispersion models in the early phases of an incident as there are with the chemical problem. 

S T SAW SCPE SECNAV SORTS SRBSDS SWAT science and technology surface acoustic wave shipboard collective protection equipment Secretary of the Navy Status of Resources and Training System short-range biological detector system special weapons and tactics team... 

Combined nuclear, chemical, and biological detectors, which could serve as joint detection and warning devices, are also being developed and fielded. 

In the absence of a biological detector or a particular characteristic of the aerosol (such as color or odor), diagnosis of an attack with trichothecene would depend on clinical observations of casualties and identification of the toxins in biological or environmental samples. This would involve a combined effort between the medical and chemical units in the field. The early signs and symptoms of an aerosol exposure to trichothecene mycotoxins would depend on particle size and toxin concentration. For a large-particle aerosol (particles > 10 pm, found in mist, fog, and dust similar to that used in Southeast Asia), the signs and symptoms would include rhinorrhea, sore throat, blurred vi-... 

GC-EAD is gas chromatography method in which a unique biological detector, based on living insect antenna, is used as one of two detection systems. GC-EAD is an analytical method which offers very fast and reliable identification of compoimds in complex natural mixtures that stimulate the olfactory sensilla of insect antennae (Struble Am, 1984). In other words, the GC-EAD helps to discover what specific chemicals in tested mixture an insect can smell, respective, which compound elicits the electric antennal response. 

Smart, J.K., History of chemical and biological detectors, alarms, and warning systems, U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, internal memo. 

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