Aresa Biodetection is a biotechnology firm based on Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 which is best known for genetically modifying a common weed to indicate the presence of land mine

Land mine

A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....

s. The company created a thale cress

Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana is a small flowering plant native to Europe, Asia, and northwestern Africa. A spring annual with a relatively short life cycle, arabidopsis is popular as a model organism in plant biology and genetics...

whose leaves turn brown in the presence of nitrogen dioxide, a compound which is leached into the soil by unexploded land mines. Previously identification of land mines was done by probing or by metal detectors. Use of these plants as indicators significantly reduces the risks to humans and animals who have previously probed the soil to locate mines and finds mines in plastic housings that cannot be found with metal detectors.