Google for 'booby traps' and you get: a) an insane eBay ad saying: 'Great deals on booby traps shop on eBay and save!'; and b) a website about bras and lingerie.
But the booby traps I refer to are neither sold on eBay, like other junk, nor used to flatter the female form. These booby traps are used to maim and terrify.
Booby traps of the destructive kind must rank among the vilest phenomena boffins have inflicted on us. Often triggered by a tripwire, a booby trap may blast the victim with shrapnel, fire a shotgun or just vibrate audibly.
Some traps consist simply of a tin can rigged up like a bell that alerts whoever planted it. Others are even more low-tech. Consider how illegal marijuana plantation farmers sometimes insert razor blades at the base of their crops so that blood flows when someone tries to yank out a plant.
Marijuana farmers also hang fish hooks from trees to snag an intruder by the cheek, lip or eye, puncturing the herb's hippy image.
Booby traps have a terrorist application too. Remember serial bomber Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski sent mail bombs to various enemies in the world of academia and technology, killing three people and wounding 29 in 16 incidents in the United States.