An app that saves life and limb

A new application being developed by Harvard Researchers enables anyone with an iPhone to detect land mines, and to do so from a safer distance, thus saving human limbs and lives, reports to Gizmodo.com.

Known as Pattern Enhancement Tool for Assisting Land Mine Sensing, or Petals, the application uses data from a metal detector to generate a picture of the underground item.

The visual provides a better idea whether the item is indeed a land mine or some other, nonfatal piece of metal, making it easier and less dangerous to determine if it needs to be deactivated or not.