The “Stealthy Insect Sensor Project” is the kind of research that makes America look either brilliant or insane.

Scientists have trained honeybees to detect explosives in an effort to protect soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I vote brilliant. Bees are cheaper to train and more discrete in the field than bomb-sniffing dogs. If the project works it’ll be the ultimate sting.

Dr. Robert Wingo from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) spoke to a crowd of UC Davis entomologists on Oct. 21 regarding his bee/bomb project. He said the Los Alamos researchers used the natural associative learning behavior of honeybees to train them to detect TNT and C4 explosives.

Bees and other insects don’t have noses, but they do have very powerful chemo receptors on their antennae. Wingo and his colleagues stuck honeybees in snug, little harnesses to keep the bees stationary and protect themselves from stings. (Wingo said he still got a lot of stings during the process, though.)

Then the scientists blew puffs of TNT or C4 chemicals at the bees, and the bees would “smell” the scent with their chemo receptors. Immediately afterwards, they’d give the bees the treat of sugar water on a Q-tip. The bees would stick their tongues out and think, “Yum! TNT smell equals treat!” After repeating the process over and over again, the bees would stick out their tongues after smelling the chemicals, but before getting the treat. The tongue reflex works as an indicator of TNT or C4 nearby.

Wingo calls honeybees (Apis mellifera) “nature’s rugged robots” for their single-minded goal of taking care of the hive. The field bees in the hive have antennae that have evolved to find the best flowers with the best nectar for the hive. LANL scientists simply used those natural skills to get the bees to associate explosive smells with the sugar water “nectar.” Hearing him talk, I could tell that Wingo had real respect for the bees. He mentioned how bees sting enemies to protect the hive, willing to “sacrifice themselves for the collective.”

It fits, then, that honeybees would belong in the field with U.S. soldiers. LANL has designed a special box that blows outside air over five bees in their harnesses. A camera watches the bees and alerts a computer if the bees are sticking their tongues out. Wingo said that when soldiers use bomb-sniffing dogs and detection machines in their work, terrorists know they are close to getting caught. It’s better to get away from the car bomb or I.E.D. before the terrorist becomes suspicious that the soldiers know it’s an explosive. The little bee-boxes are a quiet way to detect danger.

There are, however, limitations to the honeybee plan. The bees are only alive for an average of two weeks, and their memories of explosive smells and sugar water must be refreshed every 24 hours. There have been false-positives in the trials due to natural fragrances like watermelon-scented lotion. The bees’ antennae receptors are almost as effective as dogs’ noses, but not quite.

“I think dogs are probably better at detection, but they’re much more expensive,” Wingo said.

The bees have the advantage of being cheap to produce and easy to train. Before you see bees in Iraq on the nightly news, Wingo and his colleagues must convince the military that their insect sensors are effective and efficient.

In one demonstration, military investors were going to dinner with the LANL team. They were having chocolate cake for dessert, so before dinner, the LANL folks trained some bees to stick out their tongues at the smell of chocolate cake. The demonstration worked (though the bees didn’t get any cake). Wingo said bees could also help detect narcotics for police departments or explosives for airport security.

Not all bees are created equal. The next step in the project is to breed bees that live longer, stick out their tongues better and have better memories.

“There are smart bees and dumb bees,” Wingo said.

The Government Breeds Smart Bees. Now that does sound insane.

MADELINE MCCURRY-SCHMIDT would like to credit her grandpa, Max, for the awesome idea of having bees drink C4, then fly over to terrorists and blow them up. To send her more amazing ideas, e-mail her at memschmidt@ucdavis.edu.

So I read an article not too long ago that equated overprotective parents to aircrafts. Apparently, these mothers and fathers that hover over their grown children have been appropriately dubbed “helicopter parents.”

I bet you know the type. I’m referring to those parents who still try to contact their kid’s professors when they receive a bad grade, have passwords to their son’s or daughter’s SISWeb account and/or lurk in the back of their kid’s class with dark glasses and a hood on. (Okay, I don’t know of that last one actually happening, but I want it to.)

Anyway, before reading that article, I didn’t want to think parents like this really existed. This year, however, a perfect example of such a person has been so blatantly thrown in my face on several occasions that it can no longer be ignored. A public column is probably not the greatest place to admit this, but this nuisance is, in fact, the mother of my roommate.

Exhibit A: To my alarm, an urgent call from Doug of the Davis Police Department warned me of my roommate’s disappearance the other night. This was about 10 minutes before my “missing” roommate skipped through the door after returning from dinner with her boyfriend. My roommate – we’ll just call her Batman for confidentiality sake – had forgotten to contact her mother that day, so it only made sense that she had been kidnapped by the Legion of Doom. The police had to be notified.

To say Batman’s mother is a helicopter mom would be like describing the Titanic as a schooner, or comparing KetMoRee to the Silo. Batman’s mother is more specifically a Bell 212, a military spy helicopter used to gather detailed information about a specific subject. That helicopter is, in fact, a real thing. I Googled it, so it must be true. She monitors her kid’s every move in an effort to keep her close and stay in control, not out of love or sheer curiosity.

I have a hard time understanding this because my mother is like a crop duster. She has a knack for anticipating infestations of sorts and taking steps to prevent them. If I cough during a phone call with her, I get a call from the Cowell Student Health Center the next day confirming the appointment she made me. If I take a three-hour nap over Christmas break, she has my therapist aunt diagnose me with depression. You know, normal things. If a children’s book were written about my mom, it would probably be called The Crop Duster Who Cared Too Much.

My dad, on the other hand, is like a paper airplane. Bob Hardwick blows where the wind takes him, which is usually the nearest pizza place or a golf course. But let’s not overlook some of his more endearing paper-airplane qualities. While my crop duster mom carefully calculates every move she makes, my dad has a more carefree, unpredictable nature.

You can throw the paper airplane as hard as you can, but it’s still going to do a quick loop and fly right back in your face. Like his paper equal, he’s not that complicated a guy, but he still has some cool tricks up his sleeve … or wing, I guess. He gives me my freedom and I never feel like I’m being hovered over.

Anyway, in the end my parents do the things they do because they care for me and blahdy, blah, blah, blah … all that good stuff. Batman’s mother calls the police on her daughter, criticizes our house when she visits and shoots down Batman’s hopes and dreams because she does not want her daughter to be more successful than she is.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I read this article that compared parents to aircrafts, and now every time I think of someone’s mom, I find myself wondering what type of plane they would be. While I convinced myself this rant was coming to some epic point about overbearing parents and how that affects their children, I have only come to realize that people need to stop writing crappy articles that make me ponder what kind of aircraft my parents or my roommate’s psycho mother would make.

My mom is a teacher, my dad’s a lawyer and Batman’s mom is a stay-at-home idiot. I guess now that I really think about it, none of them really have anything in common with air transportation.

AMANDA HARDWICK has a fear of flying that could probably be alleviated if her parents were actually aircrafts. If you agree, give her a holler at aghardwick@ucdavis.edu.

For some, this may have happened last night; for most of you, though, it’s as foreign as a foreign language. It’s not just something you do, but it’s also something that happens. Most of the time it takes place in a bed that is, well, lofted. There have been those rare instances, however, in which the “loft effect” was successful with a few furniture rearrangements. And if utilized correctly, the “loftee” will find it hard to resist the “lofter.”

By now, you’re scratching your head with a puzzled look on your face, right?

About three years ago, a few friends created this so-called loft effect after one of them – a male – managed to get 11 girls (not an exaggeration) in his lofted bed at once. The last girl who stayed didn’t leave until the morning, thus proving the ultimate goal of the loft effect.

You’re probably wondering what the hell this loft thing is, and why you should care about it. Well, I’ll tell you. The loft effect has been defined by one if its creators as “using a physical or geographic barrier in order make it more difficult for the opposite sex to leave your room once you already have them inside; the goal, of course, is to tap that.”

If you’re still perplexed, here’s an example:

“Dude, check out that massive loft effect made by Eric, placing his bed up on a loft with a stepladder and having four couches, a fan, and a cardboard cow between the ladder and the door. Girls are never going to be able to leave his room.” (I don’t really know how you would get in, but that’s the lofter’s problem.)

While the loft effect is degrading on many levels, it’s also quite humorous if you think about it. It just proves how low some guys – even if they are my friends – have to go to get a girl to sleep with them. A skilled lofter, my friend Brian Goldberg, says a lofting expert is someone who achieves the “seemingly impossible task of getting a girl to climb high up into a bed in a room with them.” He adds that after lofting once, “one tends to prefer lofting to normal bed situations in the future.”

So if you find yourself in a room with a guy who has a lofted bed, take this as a warning of what might come next.

Why do I feel a pressing need to share the loft effect with you? Well, if you haven’t guessed already, I have been lofted. I found the experience, umm, thrilling? Who would have guessed that climbing up a ladder and being about six feet off the ground would have added that little something extra? If nothing else, it serves as a means of privacy from all the drunkards stumbling through the hallway that might “accidentally” enter someone’s bedroom before the sun rises.

I spoke with a few people who have also had the pleasure – in more ways than one – of being lofted. A friend of mine had some issues to express. She finds it annoying because when nature calls, it’s no easy task getting to the nearest bathroom. (Agreed.) It promotes laziness. It can be terrifying – especially if you’re afraid of heights – to be bumping and grinding when you and your partner could potentially fall off the bed. (Not a pretty sight.)

Unfortunately, it can’t be avoided if you’re dating someone whose bed is in a loft. My friend has accepted the loft and the boyfriend that comes with it.

Don’t get me wrong, people – this isn’t some act I take part in on a daily basis. Nor is it something I choose to promote. My experience consisted of sharing a bed that’s higher than normal with someone whom I was in a committed relationship with. I was never trapped or had to hurdle seven couches to escape. It started as a joke, and remains that way today.

Women should never be pressured to engage in any sexual activity they don’t feel comfortable with, and guys should understand that there’s more to a girl’s heart than getting in her pants.

ERICA BETNUN is trying to rearrange her room to gain maximum loft effect. If anyone has any ideas, please e-mail her at elbetnun@ucdavis.edu.