Welcome to the world of Dr Cindy Fast, a Psychologist specialising in Learning and Behaviour and Behavioural Neuroscience. This is what I imagine one of her past “to do” lists read like:
1. Realise rats are too light to set off landmines
2. Train rats to detect the scent of TNT. Also tuberculosis, because why not
3. Send rats out into the world to make it a better place
4. Hold an AMA to answer everyone’s burning questions about this entire process because seriously, wow
Dr Fast works with APOPO, a not-for-profit that trains what are affectionately known as HeroRATs – little legends that have sniffed out over 100,000 land mines and 10,000 cases of tuberculosis that were otherwise undetected.
Dr Fast jumped on Reddit today to answer everyone’s questions about this fascinating work, you can check it out here.