[HN Gopher] The Rhisotope Project: Insertion of radioisotopes in...
___________________________________________________________________
The Rhisotope Project: Insertion of radioisotopes into live
rhinoceros
Author : geox
Score : 120 points
Date : 2024-06-28 11:35 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wits.ac.za)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wits.ac.za)
| red1reaper wrote:
| So they are going to put small ammounts of radioactive stuff in
| the horns of live Rhinos so that they are easier to detect at
| border patrols? Have I understood it right? Seems a little
| extreme to be honest.
| yreg wrote:
| If it's of little harm to the rhinos then it's rather clever.
| Sharlin wrote:
| > This has led to their horns currently being the most valuable
| false commodity in the black-market trade, with a higher value
| even than gold, platinum, diamonds and cocaine.
|
| I'd say unorthodox measures to curb poaching and trade are not
| uncalled for.
| jstanley wrote:
| What does it mean for rhino horns to be worth more than gold?
| There are lots of ways to measure it.
|
| All the world's rhino horns put together are worth more than
| all the world's gold put together? All of Africa's rhino
| horns are worth more than all of Africa's gold? A single
| rhino horn is worth more than a single bar of gold? 1kg of
| gold? The same mass of gold? The same volume of gold?
| JoshGG wrote:
| If you're unfamiliar with how commodity gold is priced,
| it's by weight. So this comparison is likely comparing
| price per unit of weight.
| jstanley wrote:
| Sure, but that's not a fundamental thing, it's just a
| unit that's convenient to trade.
|
| It's like wondering whether gold is worth more than
| Microsoft by comparing an ounce of gold to a share of
| Microsoft. Or to an ounce of Microsoft share
| certificates!
|
| The only sensible way to make the comparison is by total
| market cap. And I seriously doubt that rhino horns are
| worth more than 15 trillion USD.
| ryankrage77 wrote:
| It would be atypical to trade a physical commodity for a
| share. This is the purpose of money.
| ben_w wrote:
| > The only sensible way to make the comparison is by
| total market cap
|
| From the perspective of smugglers and their stuff, that's
| about the worst possible comparison.
|
| So much so that yours is literally the first time ever
| that I've heard anyone even suggest market cap for a
| smuggled substance; looking at the definition of that
| term, I don't think that term is, or even could be by
| analogy, meaningful in this context.
|
| It's always money per mass, PS$EUR per imperial or
| metric, never anything else.
| gus_massa wrote:
| My guess is by weight. (It also may be by volume, that I
| guess is very important to transport illegal things, but
| it's too abstrtact. [1])
|
| Comparison by weight is useful to give an idea of the
| price. It's just like measuring distances in football
| fields. Don't worry too much about that. Also, a cargo
| ship full of gold [2] is probably very valuable, but a
| magical cargo ship full of rhino horns will probably
| collapse the market and be worthless.
|
| Here is a list of most expensive materials per weight
| https://brightside.me/articles/the-17-most-expensive-
| materia... it includes saffron and antimater that have a
| very short shelf life, a few radioactive things that are
| expensive only beacuse they are difficult to produce [3].
| If I had to stock huge quantities, I'd be very
| conservative and store gold and platinium.
|
| [1] Gold has a huge value per volume ratio. Toilete paper
| not.
|
| [2] Assuming it doesn't sink.
|
| [3] Aluminium used to be very expensive, until someone
| invented a method to make metalic aluminium easily.
| usuehfjfi wrote:
| Yeah, not fundamental.
|
| When you go to the store you compare bananas by the size
| of the company that produced them? Or by the price per
| kg?
| yreg wrote:
| > Sure, but that's not a fundamental thing, it's just a
| unit that's convenient to trade.
|
| How is price per unit of mass not fundamental?
|
| I refuse to believe that you are actually confused that
| one commodity costs more per gram than another one.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| You seem to be down voted by level 0 thinkers. No doubt
| they will down vote me now too.
|
| You are completely correct. While the statement is
| factually correct regarding the cost of rhino horn, it is
| completely meaningless information.
|
| We may as well throw in the cost per gram of a heart
| transplant while we're at it.
|
| I will say that annual demand is probably the more
| meaningful figure to work with, and it would be even more
| useful to express that in terms of "how many more years
| of this level of demand will lead to the extinction of
| rhinos."
| j16sdiz wrote:
| All of above.
|
| ~$400k/kg vs ~$75k/kg
| jstanley wrote:
| Well then it's not all of the above unless there's more
| than 375 million kilograms of rhino horns in the world,
| because all the gold is worth 15 trillion dollars.
|
| Unless that's the case, which seems unlikely, all the
| gold is still worth more than all the rhino horns.
|
| Also, gold's density is about 19 g/cm^3. I can't easily
| find a figure for rhino horns, but let's guess about the
| same as fingernails, horse's hooves, etc., which is about
| 1.25 g/cm^3. Gold is 15x denser, so at the prices you've
| shown, gold is still worth more than rhino horns per unit
| volume.
| usuehfjfi wrote:
| Price per volume is not used because volume changes with
| altitude. This is the reason planes measure fuel by
| weight. And scientists measure gases by weight.
|
| Because weight is the best way to compare things.
| a_c_s wrote:
| "x is worth more than gold" means the price per unit of
| weight of x is greater than that of gold.
|
| What are you trying to achieve by arguing that a common
| turn of phrase doesn't mean what everyone else thinks it
| means?
| Aachen wrote:
| Article says
|
| > These radioisotopes will provide an affordable, safe and
| easily applicable method
|
| And
|
| > After three years of meticulous and dedicated hard work [...]
| in collaboration with a team of experts who are leaders in the
| world of rhino conservation and veterinary work, will closely
| monitor the health and vital statistics of the rhinos [...]
|
| Not sure why you want to just dismiss all that
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| It seems like the two things you quoted contradict each
| other. 3 years and a team of experts in their field doesn't
| really sound affordable or effective unless it's scaled up
| quickly and it's efficacy actually demonstrated somehow.
| ylk wrote:
| Tip: It only ,,seems" and ,,sounds" that way. Your
| conclusion is quite obviously based on incomplete
| information.
| ylk wrote:
| You are confused because you interpret the meticulous and
| time-intensive nature of the research as potentially
| conflicting with the claims of affordability and ease of
| application. To clear up this confusion, let's break down
| the key points:
|
| 1. Affordability and Ease of Application: The article
| states that the radioisotopes are intended to be an
| affordable and easily applicable method for marking rhino
| horns. This means that the technology, once developed and
| refined, can be applied to rhinos without significant cost
| or complexity. The goal is to make it practical for
| widespread use.
|
| 2. Three Years of Research and Expert Collaboration: The
| three years of research and the involvement of a team of
| experts highlight the rigorous development and testing
| phase needed to ensure the method's safety and
| effectiveness. This initial investment of time and
| expertise is necessary to create a robust, scientifically
| validated solution.
|
| 3. No Contradiction: The extensive research and expert
| collaboration do not contradict the claims of affordability
| and ease of application. Rather, they ensure that the final
| product is safe, effective, and ready for widespread,
| practical use. The upfront investment in research is
| typical for developing innovative technologies and does not
| imply that the method itself will be costly or complex to
| implement once it is ready.
|
| 4. Scaling Up: The project's next phase involves closely
| monitoring the rhinos to demonstrate the method's efficacy
| and safety. If successful, this proof of concept will pave
| the way for scaling up the application to more rhinos and
| potentially other endangered species. The affordability and
| ease of application refer to the potential widespread
| deployment after the initial research phase, not the
| development phase.
|
| In summary, your confusion arises from conflating the
| initial research and development effort with the final
| application's intended affordability and practicality. The
| article suggests that after this rigorous development
| phase, the method will be straightforward and cost-
| effective to implement on a larger scale.
|
| Was wondering what ChatGPT's answer would be to this
| comment chain. (Also mostly checked that what it claims
| about the article's content is correct)
| gus_massa wrote:
| The dose makes the poison.
|
| If the dose is low enough (like a x-ray for a person per year)
| it's not a problem. If the dose is high it's dangerous.
| https://xkcd.com/radiation/
|
| Also the horn is made of compressed hair.
| https://www.savetherhino.org/our-work/protecting-rhinos/what...
| So the local radioactivity is not a problem, you must calculate
| the distance to the head.
| surfingdino wrote:
| They are rhinos. It's not like your sister is brining one home
| on a Sunday to meet the rest of the family. /s
|
| I assume the doses are small enough to be harmless.
| adolph wrote:
| Typically she starts the salt soak the day before because the
| recipe calls for an hour per pound and rhinos are really big.
|
| https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-
| cooking/recipes/a11882/...
| wanderingstan wrote:
| > Over 11 000 radiation detection portal monitors are installed
| at airports, harbours and other ports of entry, including
| thousands of trained personnel equipped with radiation detectors,
| all of which can detect the smallest radioactive particles.
|
| I didn't realize this. Injecting small, safe radioactive material
| into rhino horns seems like an incredibly good hack: turn all
| that nuclear monitoring equipment into poached animal artifact
| detectors.
| tomp wrote:
| The statement is false, unfortunately.
|
| There's definite a positive (non-zero) threshold below which it
| doesn't trigger.
|
| Bananas are radioactive, and while a single banana doesn't
| trigger the alarms, a lot of bananas _might_!
|
| from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
|
| _> Although the amount in a single banana is small in
| environmental and medical terms, the radioactivity from a
| truckload of bananas is capable of causing a false alarm when
| passed through a Radiation Portal Monitor used to detect
| possible smuggling of nuclear material at U.S. ports._
| netsharc wrote:
| HN headline in 3 years: airport sniffer dogs being trained to
| smell for bananas.
|
| Because that's what the horn-smugglers will be carrying in
| attempts to deflect why the airport scanner is detecting
| radiation in their luggage.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's the potassium in the bananas, so potassium rich salt
| will also do this. Presumably many other common items are
| also sufficiently potassium rich.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| If you leave a scintillating detector such as a Radiacode
| or similar on a bag of potassium chloride water softener
| salt for a while you can actually detect a very slight
| amount of radioactivity and generate a spectrum :)
| gus_massa wrote:
| Bananas are not so radioactive, my guess is that they are
| using a stronger radioactive source. Perhaps hide the horn
| inside a truck full of bananas? I guess the horn will be
| still more radioactive.
|
| Also, each radioactive source produce radioactivity with
| different energy, so you can use specialized equipment to
| identify the source. (We used one in the lab in an
| undergraduate couse of Physics. It's not very big, like the
| size of a shoe.)
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Classic case of a societal problem that technology tries to
| paper over, and does a poor job doing so. Rhino horns are used
| for their keratin and "traditional" medicine ingredients.
|
| Radiation portal monitors will not detect all quantities and
| there are simple techniques for masking these detections with
| sheilding, or via nuisance alarms if they are detected. [1]
|
| Shark fin extraction, for shark fin soup, has a similar
| cultural problem. Influential people in the communities that
| consume these products, ie Yao Ming, could make a lot more
| progress by simply having public campaigns against it. [2]
|
| [1] Source: me, I am a radation detecion PhD who works on
| similar kinds of problems, with similarly or more capable
| systems. [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJG7RaLX-DM
| sbergot wrote:
| A solution doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Sure, but paying for an anti-shark fin commercial might be
| as much as a single portal monitor.
|
| Having portal monitors that serve many purposes is good,
| and generally the biggest impact they have is in the
| deterrence effect, ie bad actors might be constrained by
| their existence. However in order for deterrence to be
| effective it must be a credible capability. Since there are
| so many smugglers, and they could reasonably implement
| simple countermeasures, it is likely the deterrence effect
| is small to nil in this case.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Isn't the whole point that the portal monitors are
| already bought, paid for, and in fact operated by other
| people?
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Nobody cares about preachy commercials, except in that
| doing the opposite of what they preach makes you edgy and
| cool.
|
| A big celeb getting caught doing something gauche and
| getting dogpiled in the press? _That_ is what effective
| deterrent looks like.
| bluGill wrote:
| People say that, but the data proves good commercials
| work. Of course not all commercials work, but there is
| plenty of data showing they do work and what works.
| manarth wrote:
| > Rhino horns are used for their "traditional" medicine
| ingredients
|
| The level of radiation is non-toxic to rhinos in their horns,
| but extremely toxic if ingested as a "traditional" medicine.
|
| The "product" is ruined.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Not fully ruined... since the injections are typically not
| loose contamination, for fear that it migrates into the
| rhino via capillary action or irradiates the rhino more
| than people are comfortable with.
|
| Smugglers would likely be able to use simple, cheap
| detectors to remove these.
|
| Potentially they don't remove the pils, simply grind the
| horn + source into medicine... the amount of radiation will
| not cause acute effects to the person who ingests it and
| will likely just cause some "unexplainable" tumor or system
| failure later in life or after a prolonged consumption.
| shiandow wrote:
| Honestly I'm a bit confused, the descriptions seem
| contradictory or require an extraordinary level of fine
| tuning.
|
| If you just insert a capsule of radioactive material,
| it's easy to make it (extremely) poisonous, easily
| detectable and harmless to the rhino. But I don't see a
| way to do all three at once.
|
| If you just wanted to kill the consumers a small amount
| of an alpha emitter would work quite well, but would be
| hard to detect and carry a small amount of risk to the
| rhino if it breaks confinement.
|
| Conversely you could use a strong gamma emitter to make
| it easily detectable but I don't see a way to do so that
| would harm the consumers but not the rhino. Best you can
| do is some level or radioactivity that we're fine with in
| animals but not in humans because we're hypocrites.
| GTP wrote:
| > Best you can do is some level or radioactivity that
| we're fine with in animals but not in humans because
| we're hypocrites.
|
| I don't know if this is the case, but if the life
| expectancy of rhinos is much less than humans, then there
| would be radiation levels that are safe for the rhino but
| harmful for humans. Tumors can take time to develop.
| krisoft wrote:
| > I don't know if this is the case, but if the life
| expectancy of rhinos is much less than humans,
|
| Luckily this is easily obtainable information on the
| internet.
|
| 'Rhinoceroses' lifespans vary on species. A rhino's
| lifespan is typically 40 to 45 years."
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/rhinoceros-fact-
| sheet/
|
| That is less than a human lifespan but not by orders of
| magnitude smaller. Sounds like a very narrow needle to
| thread.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| I think that no one believes killing consumers of these
| products is a viable solution or that it doesn't have
| disastrous side effects. What happens with rhinos that
| die? do we have to collect their tusks and these are rad-
| waste now?
|
| Making them radioactive with non-penetrating particles
| might be ok from the standpoint of trying to make them
| less desirable... but you aren't making them detectable &
| it is highly controversial to do this.
|
| In reality, and back to the solutions proposed by the
| article: I don't know if the source article's idea has
| merit or is just funded by a non-profit where this is a
| small pet project or if they really don't understand the
| tradespace.
| richardw wrote:
| If this has a chance of getting to 100% of the
| population, I think if I were the rhino I'd want to take
| those odds given the alternative is being hunted.
|
| And if it's eg 50%, I'd very much want to be in the
| injected 50% because all poaching effort would be in the
| non treated population. Obviously assuming all animals in
| an area were injected and that was known to poachers.
| alwa wrote:
| Do the black-market consumers know that? Fentanyl and
| xylazine come to mind: not many drug users _intend_ to get
| those, they can get many batches of what they _do_ want
| before they get an adulterated batch, and they often don't
| find out they got the adulterated kind until it's too late.
|
| I'm also wondering where we're getting the idea that it's
| extremely toxic if ingested. Maybe it's in the video? The
| article seems to suggest that it's "non-toxic" and that
|
| > "the inserted radioisotopes hold no health or any other
| risk for the animals or those who care for them."
| manarth wrote:
| > "The radioactive dose makes the horn poisonous for
| humans"
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/cd16yjp0062o
| manarth wrote:
| An additional reference: > 'The
| radioactive material would "render the horn useless...
| essentially poisonous for human consumption" added
| Nithaya Chetty, professor and dean of science at [the
| University of the Witwatersrand]'
|
| https://phys.org/news/2024-06-radioactive-rhino-horns-
| curb-p...
| ta988 wrote:
| Fentanyl is more complex, now users are more and more
| looking for it... (source: a friend working in harm
| reduction)
| todd8 wrote:
| Rhino horns are not made of ivory.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Yes... sorry I am thinking of some related topics in this
| area, not only just about rhinos. Elephant trade has a
| similar issue, and this is why my mind was in that space.
| orev wrote:
| Any deterrence scheme relies on awareness and uncertainty
| just as much, if not more than, an actual technology. If
| poachers think it will raise the chances of detection, even
| if that chance isn't 100%, that's just as good to deter them.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Sure, the multiagent problem needs communication of the
| credible threat to the bad actors. "Credible threat"
| implies that bad actors don't collect information about the
| system, technical and non-technical, that implies the
| balance of risk and reward isn't tilted in favor of
| continuing their actions.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Only if the percentage of the population injected is high,
| which is unlikely given it took 3 years to inject 20
| rhinos. If the percentage is small, the poachers could just
| get a cheap radiation detector and screen out whatever
| portion of their haul is contaminated before passing it
| along. Further, many smugglers are unconcerned with
| detection, they already likely bribe a customs agent to
| ignore it.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Even if the poachers can detect the contamination, they
| are probably going to kill the rhino, flee the area, and
| then assess the goods. So you still have a dead rhino
| unless the doping is well communicated and obvious to
| all.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > Radiation portal monitors will not detect all quantities
| and there are simple techniques for masking these detections
| with sheilding, or via nuisance alarms if they are detected.
|
| I think more than actual quantities involved, the scary risk
| of radiation, however unlikely, may be a bigger deterrent for
| the consumers of these products. The more widely this news
| spreads, the better it is for the Rhinos.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| Sorry, but if you're going to cite yourself you should do
| better than "radation detecion".
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Well, he didn't claim the PhD was in spelling...
| omgJustTest wrote:
| At least we know I'm not an LLM! (Cant change the spelling
| now!)
| giarc wrote:
| Probably is by the time they are found, the rhino is dead. They
| might catch the last guy holding the bag, but I suspect it's
| passed through a few different groups by the time it reaches
| the airport. So the poachers just go on poaching as they
| already got paid.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| Yes, for the first few.
|
| But the idea of the test is that this could be done in a
| wider scale. If a significant portion of horns are being
| confiscated (via radiation sensors) then there's fewer horns
| being sold and less money available for all those middleman
| groups. Over time the market goes away.
|
| Perhaps similar to how the market for stolen iPhones dried up
| once people could remotely brick their stole phone. There's
| just less money to be made so thieves move on to more
| lucrative targets.
| Sharlin wrote:
| I wonder what radioisotopes they're using. I assume it's a gamma
| emitter because alpha and beta would be readily absorbed by the
| horn and any packaging material?
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| This is genius, but what stops the poachers from removing the
| material?
| madamelic wrote:
| I would figure cost and time.
|
| Poachers are looking for a quick payday and having to do this
| would cost additional time & money that will drive them
| elsewhere.
|
| Sort of like the adage of the best security is being less of a
| target / more of an annoyance to rob than your neighbor.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Edit: Here was nonsense. I should read the article properly.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Where did you read that? They bore holes in the horns and
| insert the radiotopes in the horn, not in the whole rhino.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Apologies, I let the title ("injecting") mislead me. I
| assume it's a multitude of factors:
|
| - poachers/smugglers would need to know about this before
| they get caught (doesn't save _that_ rhino, but adds
| friction to smuggling and removes some smugglers /buyers -
| both the ones caught and the ones who quit because they're
| worried about it)
|
| - testing for it likely requires non-trivial equipment
| (again adds friction to the trade)
|
| - depending on how visible the hole is, accurately
| _locating_ it inside the horn may not be trivial either
|
| - once located, removing it still devalues the horn
| jjk166 wrote:
| Unfortunately by the time this detects a piece of ivory, the
| damage is already done. If it took 3 years to inject 20 rhinos,
| it's unlikely that a large enough portion of the population could
| be injected to act as an effective deterrent for those actually
| killing the animals. Even for those actually involved in moving
| the ivory, it's only a deterrent if they actually face
| consequences at these borders - many states have weak enforcement
| of anti-ivory laws, and many more have bribable customs agents.
| Further, ivory has a value to weight ratio that is extremely
| conducive to smuggling.
|
| By comparison, infusion which puts a dye and an anti-consumption
| toxin in the horns to render the ivory worthless and thus prevent
| the animals from being killed in the first place is a well
| developed and inexpensive process that has proven effective.[0] I
| don't see how radioisotope injection is an improvement.
|
| [0] https://rhinorescueproject.org/how-it-works/
| Muromec wrote:
| Well maybe radioactivity should trip existing detectors in
| airports and customs?
|
| I'm not sure those exist, but sounds like something you want to
| scan for on the borderline
| jjk166 wrote:
| When I say smuggling here, I mean crossing a border
| illegally, avoiding customs.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Also.. Geiger counters are not expensive and they can just
| ignore the tiny fraction of injected rhinos.
| alan-hn wrote:
| I'm not sure that it would be detectable with a Geiger
| counter. Other chemical analysis methods are used to detect
| isotopes like this
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| They say that the plan is to use existing radiation
| detectors at ports. Another article [1] mentions that the
| isotope emits Gamma rays, one of the types of radiation
| that can be detected by a Geiger - Muller tube.
|
| [1] https://www.extremetech.com/science/scientists-turn-to-
| radio...
| jjk166 wrote:
| According to the article, the radioisotope is specifically
| meant to be detected by the handheld radiation detectors
| typically used by customs agents. If it can't be detected
| by passive radiation detectors, there is even less argument
| for its efficacy.
| Sanzig wrote:
| The flux follows the inverse square law, however, which
| means to detect if a rhino is tagged you'd have to get
| really close. Admittedly I don't know anything about the
| mechanics of rhino poaching, but considering how
| aggressive rhinos are I imagine poachers would prefer to
| shoot them from a decent range for their own safety.
| jjk166 wrote:
| No one is talking about scanning live rhinos. Even in the
| best case scenario, this is to catch poachers long after
| the rhinos are dead.
| dotancohen wrote:
| They'll kill the rhino, then test it. If it tests positive,
| they'll just leave the carcass to rot.
| jjk166 wrote:
| No one is talking about testing live rhinos. Even in the
| best case scenario this is to catch poachers after the
| rhino is dead.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _Unfortunately by the time this detects a piece of ivory, the
| damage is already done_
|
| Reminds me of one of the worst "abolish the Police" arguments:
| By the time you put a murderer in jail, the victim is already
| dead.
| DistantCl3ric wrote:
| Rhino horn is not ivory. Its keratin. Higher value to weight
| ratio than ivory.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Gotta wonder if it would be better to instead focus on making
| it easier to source keratin from a bioreactor / cell culture.
| Crash the market with "counterfeit" rhino keratin which is as
| good as the real stuff anyhow.
| williamdclt wrote:
| I'd guess that most buyers of objects made from rhino horns
| are more interested in its rhino horn nature than its
| keratin composition. If keratin became suddenly abundant, I
| doubt it'd impact the rhino horn market very much
|
| I know nothing of that market though, could be entirely
| wrong
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I also know nothing of it, it's just a fun thought. In a
| previous life I really enjoyed faking parking permits and
| IDs and transcripts and stuff... it would be pretty fun
| to return to that but this time be one of the good guys:
| faking rhino horns for the sake of protecting actual
| rhinos.
| michael1999 wrote:
| But good counterfeits would crash the market. It's
| already run by crooks. They'd be happy to cheat.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Then rich Chinese dudes who can't get a boner will demand a
| video of their rhino being killed and the horn being taken.
| StormChaser_5 wrote:
| Surely that sory of video would be easy to fake if needed
| these days?
| michael1999 wrote:
| I think being able to produce reliable supply chain
| traceability is indistinguishable from keeping detailed
| notes on a criminal conspiracy. None of the players want
| that besides the consumer. Never happen.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Sure, but it isn't clear to me that China actually cares
| about stopping rhino poaching, and I imagine the major
| players in the conspiracy never set foot in South Africa,
| and just have local low level agents (ie the ones we are
| told are so poor, they need to poach the rhinos to
| survive) exposed to consequences.
| joot330 wrote:
| Buyers aren't interested in "keratin" - they are interested
| in "rhino horn". This is about mystical benefits from
| phallic animal parts. You aren't going to tackle the market
| by fueling it.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Wool is mostly keratin, also hooves and nails.
|
| And feathers, turtle shell, but they are made or another
| type of keratin.
|
| To be honest, each the keratin of each animal is slightly
| different, with small changes of the composition, something
| like plastic that can be made softer or harder tweaking the
| compostition.
|
| Anyway, I guess it's not about the exact composition, but
| the "magic" part of the rhino horn.
| jjk166 wrote:
| The great irony is that rhino horns grow back. Poachers
| would actually make more money in the long term if they
| didn't kill the rhinos.
| godelski wrote:
| > making it easier to source keratin from a bioreactor
|
| Keratin is readily available and cheap
|
| Here's 50g of it on Amazon for $16:
| https://www.amazon.com/Myoc-Keratin-Powder-Conditioner-
| Produ...
|
| And you can get it from chemical manufacturers in purer
| forms for much more expensive but that's true for any high
| grade chemical.
|
| In fact, if we type your question into Google we find this
| 2019 article that even references a 2015 article about
| attempts to do exactly that: https://www.vox.com/down-to-
| earth/22723289/3d-printed-rhino-...
|
| I highly suggest googling solutions that you think are
| rather obvious. It can often lead to surprising results as
| things can interestingly become complex. And at the worst
| case, you find that your idea works and you can throw in a
| citation to give your proposition more weight. Seems like a
| win win to me and at very little cost in time.
| pvaldes wrote:
| If we could only built a 3d printer that would work with
| keratin...
| wanderingstan wrote:
| This is a proof of concept project. The "3 years" is not
| because of some inherent difficulty, it's just a typical
| research project.
|
| From the article:
|
| > ...will closely monitor the health and vital statistics of
| the rhinos over a period of six months, in order to determine
| the viability of this approach.
|
| If this approach is shown to be healthy, I'm sure it could be
| done much faster.
| godelski wrote:
| I often see this (gp's) sentient on HN and it is quite
| surprising to me given how people here specifically work in
| technology. Are we not intimately familiar with how one
| typically starts with small trial groups before we scale, so
| that we understand the effectiveness and safety? Or are we
| just "move fast and break things" and leave a mess in our
| wake with no one spending time to clean anything up. I guess
| that would explain enshitification.
|
| But seriously, S-curves aren't just about how the middle part
| looks exponential. Both ends are slow. Slow to start and slow
| to end. When technology B replaces technology A it is
| (almost) always WORSE than technology A initially. The
| difference is that its theoretical maximum is higher. Because
| guess what? In the long run if you stack a bunch of S-curves
| together, you get an exponential curve. And this is how so
| much technology has improved, including transistors, solar,
| batteries, and so on. Sometimes this slow start can be on the
| order of decades! The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1983) wasn't "a
| failure," it was a step to the IBM Simon (1992) which was a
| step to the iPhone (2007).
|
| So if you're exclusively chasing things that are better *
| _now*_ , you won't make any progress. You have to invest.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level
| jjk166 wrote:
| > After three years of meticulous and dedicated hard work,
| the Rhisotope Project at Wits University has successfully
| inserted low doses of radioisotopes into 20 live rhinoceros.
|
| Sounds like there is some inherent difficulty requiring years
| of meticulous and dedicated hard work to insert doses into 20
| live rhinoceroses.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| There is not enough information to draw that conclusion.
| Anyone familiar with academia (or even a R&D tech project)
| can imagine what could take 3 years: ethics board approval,
| getting permission from the relevant government agencies,
| finding and hiring local Rhino experts to do the tagging,
| iterating on design of the drill and placement of isotopes,
| waiting to find enough rhinos that fit the high-standards
| demanded for a POC study (extra large, extra healthy, etc),
| and so on.
|
| Or the other way: If it really took three years to tag 20
| rhinos with everything working at full speed, don't you
| think the University and the researches themselves would be
| the first to realize this is impracticle? Don't you think
| the journal reviewers would point this out?
| godelski wrote:
| > Anyone familiar with academia (or even a R&D tech
| project) can imagine what could take 3 years
|
| Yeah honestly (as an academic; on applied side), when I
| saw "3 years" my first thought was "wow that's fast." And
| the second one was "was that just to get approval or is
| that they've had the device in the rhino 0-3 years and
| are testing how effective their methods are at staying in
| and not doing long term damage to the animal?" Because
| the latter question I can see taking even longer. Though
| they say a rhino is poached every 20 hrs, so I think
| there's probably some urgency to the matter where 3 years
| of testing is good enough.
|
| > Don't you think the journal reviewers would point this
| out?
|
| Well... I also don't have faith in journal reviewers so
| who the fuck knows.
| godelski wrote:
| > inherent difficulty requiring years of meticulous and
| dedicated hard work
|
| I'm not quite convinced of this. If you watch the video in
| the article they demonstrate the procedure. Considering
| that they typically paint the rhino's horns with substances
| to make them undesirable to poachers, they clearly have the
| capacity to subdue and restrain the rhino already. And in
| the video they show a person using a standard hand drill,
| who drills into the rhino. You can see this at 0:20 and
| them insert the device at 0:34, where just after they show
| another horn being drilled into. And they do it several
| times throughout the video while the narrator explains the
| process.
|
| I suspect that the 3 years is far less due to the actual
| "installing" it into the rhino (as it looks like once
| subdued the process is really <15 minutes...) but rather to
| things like regulation and determining the nuances like
| "how many isotopes do we need" (clearly more than one),
| "what types of radiation are more detectable?" "what levels
| of radiation will sustain and be detectable when
| transporting horns across international airports?", "Are we
| causing harm to the rhinos through the radiation?", "does
| the radiation leech into the rhino's body, such that while
| the device is safe inside the horn it would be harmful,"
| "how often does that happen, especially given when they
| fight?", "do the devices stay in place for sustained
| periods of time?" and so on. There's quite a lot of
| important questions and many I'm sure that an actual expert
| in this could ask, but I'm nowhere near a rhino expert (or
| even enthusiast) [though am experienced with radiation
| technologies] and I have a bunch of questions that would
| reasonably take years to adequately answer.
|
| It isn't "ah fuck, rhinos are so hard to catch that we're
| only able to catch one every 2 months" but "okay, we've
| installed these devices in 5 rhinos, are they still there 3
| years later?" and "oh fuck, that type of glue and that
| drilling depth didn't work because we lost 10 devices in
| the first year. Time to update our methodology."
|
| I find these kinds of questions magnitudes more likely than
| the explanation that they couldn't catch 20 rhinos and
| drill into their horns. Especially given what can be seen
| in the video about how the rhinos act.
| joot330 wrote:
| One reason it's an improvement is that radiation is detectable
| by already-existing methods used at the borders. So it will
| help catch them in the act of smuggling.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Unfortunately by the time this detects a piece of ivory, the
| damage is already done. If it took 3 years to inject 20
| rhinos, it's unlikely that a large enough portion of the
| population could be injected to act as an effective deterrent
| for those actually killing the animals. Even for those
| actually involved in moving the ivory, it's only a deterrent
| if they actually face consequences at these borders - many
| states have weak enforcement of anti-ivory laws, and many
| more have bribable customs agents. Further, ivory has a value
| to weight ratio that is extremely conducive to smuggling.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I see that it doesn't bother anyone else that "novel" is
| capitalized for no reason in the title of the article (the actual
| article, not just the HN title). So be it, I'll see myself out.
| antiquark wrote:
| So they have to tranquilize the rhinos first. That in itself can
| kill the animal.
|
| I can't find a reference, but that reminds me of an old project
| to dye rhino horns pink. Sadly, a few rhinos didn't survive the
| process.
| is_true wrote:
| This looks like a side project for one of the fake meat
| companies.
| carrotcarrot wrote:
| Scientists need to stop mucking with nature. First the "edible
| vaccines" genetic modification, and now this? I'd rather live in
| a world where agencies don't have absolute control over us.
| Perfect enforcement doesn't need to exist.
| swayvil wrote:
| Ditto. I trust neither their abilities nor their intentions.
| Keep your big plans well away from me. Thanks.
| breezeTrowel wrote:
| Are you a rhinoceros?
| sneela wrote:
| > Every 20 hours in South Africa a rhino dies for its horn.
|
| I didn't know this statistic before - this is disheartening.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Here's another one : between 24 and 150 animal species go
| extinct probably every _day_ !
|
| > current extinctions were 'up to 100 times higher than the
| background rate.'
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_d...
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| Speaking as a South African, I hope this can make a difference,
| every little bit helps.
|
| Unless it can completely stop poaching (which on its own I think
| is unlikely) I don't think it will solve the fundamental issue
| that drives poaching, that there is a market willing to pay
| exorbitant fees.
|
| Ivory has zero physiological medicinal effects, but their
| rareness convinces certain kinds of (shithead) people that they
| "must". The rarer the material, the more "special" it becomes,
| driving up the price further and the higher the price, the more
| emboldened the poachers become.
| elefanten wrote:
| > their rareness convinces certain kinds of (shithead) people
| that they "must"
|
| A complementary strategy is to relentlessly name and shame the
| backward cultures that compose this shitheadedness.
|
| So say it with me: Chinese* traditional medicine is backwards
| and primitive. Chinese ivory buyers are a shameful stain upon
| humanity.
|
| * The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
| (CITES) reports that nearly all of the current demand for
| elephant ivory comes from the Chinese market. -https://educatio
| n.nationalgeographic.org/resource/economics-...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Starting on Monday, 24 June 2004, Professor Larkin and his team
| carefully sedated the 20 rhinos
|
| Is that a typo? I'd think after 20 years we'd know if the plan
| worked.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| Which ,,non-toxic radioisotopes" and how much is a small hole?
| rustcleaner wrote:
| I wonder if anyone is trying to lab-grow ivory like they're
| trying with organs, considering ivory's price there might be
| margin there.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Yes I know rhino != ivory.
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