Bluegills used to monitor drinking water

While checking Al Jazeera for Bin Laden news today I stumbled across this interesting story.

A company in California has developed a system using the common bluegill fish to function as the "canary in the coalmine" in the event of a terrorist attack on a municipal water supply. Bluegills are currently protecting the water supplies in NYC, SF, and DC.

"Nature's given us pretty much the most powerful and reliable early warning centre out there," said Bill Lawler, co-founder of Intelligent Automation Corporation, a Southern California company that makes and sells the bluegill monitoring system. "There's no known manmade sensor that can do the same job as the bluegill."

Al Jazeera - Fish to guard water
Intelligent Automation Corp.