article_snippet: Armed with a sharp sense of smell, dogs have a long history of detecting explosives for dogs human handlers, and soon there could be sniffer elephants too.
article_snippet: Researchers have found that the large mammals excel at identifying explosives by smell, stirring speculation about whether Researchers extraordinary ability could save lives.
article_snippet: Elephants could be used to detect land mines in areas that have seen conflict and could even do so at a distance with the aid of drones.
article_snippet: Researchers have found that elephants excel at identifying explosives by smell, stirring speculation about whether elephants .
article_snippet: Elephants could be used to detect land mines in areas that have seen conflict and could even do so at a distance with the aid of drones.
article_snippet: The ability of elephants to detect explosives was first noticed in Angola - a country that many elephants had returned to after a 2002 peace deal ended a protracted war.
article_snippet: However, in the real world, making an elephant walk around a mine field would not only put the animal in danger, but would be impractical too.
article_snippet: To overcome this problem, unmanned drones could collect scent samples from mined areas and bring unmanned drones to a trained elephant, which would smell unmanned drones and alert handlers to any sign of explosives, Mr Hensman said.
article_snippet: Another possibility would be to replicate an elephant’s sense of smell and incorporate Another possibility into electronic sensors that detect dangerous materials, building on research with dogs and rats, Mr Hensman said.
article_snippet: Mr Hensman revealed that researchers are thinking of designing a sensor based on an elephant trunk, which puffs out air to stir up an area, and then sucks in air to smell.
highlights_snippet: Experiment found elephants excel at identifying explosives by smell .
  
highlights_snippet: Drones could collect mine field scent samples for elephant analysis .
  
highlights_snippet: Elephant's sense of smell could be used to inspire new sensors .