The U.S. military is trying to engineer common marine microorganisms into living tripwires to warn about the approach of submarines or other dangers sent underseas by the enemy, Defense One has reported.
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is promoting the research, which is in its early stages.
There already exists a $45 million overall effort in the armed forces that provides researchers what they need to engineer genetic responses into organisms that would be useful for the military, as reported by the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base website.
The general idea in the NRL research is to take plentiful sea organism and alter its genetic makeup to react to certain substances that would be common in enemy equipment or personnel, such as some molecule that doesn’t exist naturally in the ocean but is left behind by, for example, diesel-powered submarines.
The reaction could take the form of electron loss, which could be detectable to friendly sub drones.
NRL researcher Sarah Glaven explained at a speech last month that “In an engineered context, we might take the ability of the microbes to give up electrons, then use [those electrons] to talk to something like an autonomous vehicle. Then you can start imagining that you can create an electrical signal when the bacteria encounters some molecule in their environment.”
Glaven said the research is about a year away from providing solid proof that she can engineer reactions in common marine life forms that could prove useful for the military, particularly for finding submarines.
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