Biohacked bacteria possibly useful for landmine detection

Neat idea from students at the University of Edinburgh, who claim to have used Tom Knight’s BioBricks technology to produce a strain of bacteria that are bioluminescent in the presence of explosives or explosives residue. The notion is that liquid cultures of the bugs could be sprayed onto the ground in mined areas and would glow green wherever mines were to be found. I can think of lots of reasons why this might not work as well as one might hope, however, and because no technical details seem to be available, nor any peer-reviewed data, the news should probably be taken with a grain of salt. If anybody has any more info, please link us in the comments. [via Boing Boing]