Cyborg roaches used for surveillance purposes… sounds familiar

This news is both disturbing, disgusting, and… useful?  Alright, alright, alright, remember the movie 5th Element?  Of course you do, it’s an awesome movie.  Remember that ridiculous scene where they send in the cockroach with the radar on its back to do surveillance?  Remember how over the top that was?  Remember how ridiculous it looked?  REMEMBER when you said that could never happen?  I hope you see where this is going…

We’ll you’re dead on, it’s happening.  Researchers have done it at North Carolina State University has found a way to control cockroaches.  These ‘biobotic cockroaches’ are normal Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (ew) that have tech attached to them so scientists can control their movement via remote control.  Through low-cost electronic backpacks with a receiver and transmitter attached to these disgusting little guys (sooooo 5th Element), the scientists use electrodes implanted on the insect’s antenna and cerci to control them.

Dafuq?  Imagine these bugs crawling around in enemy warzones doing spy stuff.  Who better to send in warzones then the little suckers that can survive nuclear explosions?  Yea.  Oh, on top of that they are working with this tech on moths as well.  They can fly… they can fly.  

lper Bozkurt, assistant professor of electrical engineering at NCS said, “Our aim was to determine whether we could create a wireless biological interface with cockroaches, which are robust and able to infiltrate small spaces. Ultimately, we think this will allow us to create a mobile web of smart sensors that uses cockroaches to collect and transmit information, such as finding survivors in a building that's been destroyed by an earthquake.”

There you have it. Big bada boom…

[Gizmodo via NCSU]

Historian, teacher, writer, gamer, cheat master, and tech guru: follow on Twitter @AndrewC_GZ