Word: Improving intelligence

Adam Curtis, BBC :It was recently revealed that back in the 1970s - at the height of the obsession with traitors - MI5 trained a specially bred group of gerbils to detect spies. Gerbils have a very acute sense of smell and they were used in interrogations to tell whether the suspects were releasing adrenaline -because that would show they were under stress and lying.

Then they tried the gerbils to see if they could detect terrorists who were about to carry a bomb onto a plane. But the gerbils got confused because they couldn't tell the difference between the terrorists and ordinary people who were frightened of flying who were also pumping out adrenaline in their sweat.

So the gerbils failed as well.

Perhaps MI5 shouldn't have given up so easily. Maybe what we need is a better class of gerbil to find out the truth? But maybe we have them already - They're called journalists.