One CBS interest is developing new detection technologies patterned after the olfactory and neural mechanisms by which insects smell odors with their antennae. CBS coordinator Alan Rudolph first contacted Lewis a year ago, after learning of Lewis' work with Microplitis , Cotesia , and Cardiochiles wasps at the Insect Biology and Population Management Research Lab , operated in Tifton, Georgia, by USDA's Agricultural Research Service . ARS is USDA's chief scientific agency. The work of Lewis, Iowa State University collaborator Tim Baker, and ARS chemist Jim Tumlinson, is three-pronged. Another is rigging detached wasp antennae to a remotely-controlled sensor that displays the electrical readings.
Scientists can teach the wasps to find odors otherwise ignored in nature.
In flight tunnel experiments, scientists showed that the wasps would fly towards tubes emitting cyclohexanol, TNT, vanilla and methyl jasmonate at rates of 0.05 to 30 nanograms per minute one meter downwind. In nature, this dog-like sense of smell helps wasps find plants where caterpillars can serve as hosts for offspring.