The latest high tech device, about the size of a two checkers, being used to "sniff out" chemical warfare agents and other dangerous elements consists of a container holding five parasite sized baby wasps.   The wasps are trained to smell suspicious chemicals flowing through a whole in the device, then gather around it.   This clustering is then detected by a teeny tiny camera which then triggers an alarm.   The wasps are trained to do this in order to receive a sugar water reward.   It takes all of 5 minutes to train wasps to detect almost any odor.   The researchers who have been working on this for decades say, "The wasps are cheap and reliable, and you can breed thousands of them."

I'm all for detecting chemical warfare agents but any project which involves breeding thousands, presumably millions, of wasps, has got me worried.   I hope they kill the baby wasps when the task is complete!