Super Creepy Cyborg Insects Will Soon Spy On You

Shailpik
Oct 13, 2009
Updated • Dec 4, 2012
Internet
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Pentagon has been working on a special type of technology that would turn bugs in to something that would really live up to the multiple meanings of bug. Okay, I will give it to you straight – they are working on something that'll turn normal bugs in to remote controlled ones that can be controlled, erm…remotely and flown like a toy helicopter. Like I said, it is not just creepy, it is super creepy.

Scientists at University of California, Berkley have actually accomplished this task. They have successfully attached tiny electrodes and other electronic parts on to living insects. Through these implants, the bug can now be maneuvered through a laptop.

The engineering principle behind is not very difficult to understand. Since we human beings can’t exactly one-up nature on engineering, this is a sort of hack in to the system. It’s like installing a malware that takes control of your computer and then the malware creator manipulates your system through the implant.

The bugs are implanted with the electronic parts at the pupal stage or around the time when they retreat inside the pupa. This way, they actually grow up with parts implanted in them. Then when they are fully grown and take flight, the electrodes transmit electrical pulses in to their nervous system and muscles. So in case the controller wants the bug to veer left during flight, the electrodes charge the left  muscles to make them work harder and the body turns left. Is it is just me or does this sound eerily similar to the way human beings were controlled in The Matrix?

Free yourself from the Matrix!-1

The bug that is being shown off at this point is a Beetle. The developers of the system, Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz, talked to the Neuroscience Magazine and told them that they had successfully demonstrated remote control in free flight through an implantable radio-equipped neural transmitter.

Attempts to do things similar to this have been going on for several years now and it has already been tried on insects like cockroaches. But this the first time ever that man has been able to extend this kind of control on an insect. This is not necessarily a good thing though. However, as with every scientific achievement, what comes off it will depend on how we use it. And the identity of the people who are funding it already gives us a large enough hint as to what the purpose of this project might be.

The project is being funded by the Pentagon. More precisely, it is being funded by the US Defense Research Project Agency (DARPA) and they themselves have been trying to build a Nano Air Vehicle or NAV.

thankfully this is still in the realm of Sci Fi
thankfully this is still in the realm of Sci Fi

These NAVs would be small enough (less that 7.6cm and 10g) to go to places undetected and carry out reconnaissance missions in urban areas mainly. Even though we have advanced enough in the field of nano-technology to make the insect-implants, we are still unable to build something like that completely on our own.

So the military hopes that the beetles would act like micro air vehicles and give them unprecedented advantages during war.

Thankfully, nothing like that is possible immediately because the control  implant is all that the insects can carry during flight. Any more weight and they will not be able to lift it with their wings. So things like a camera and a GPS transmitter are still quite far away from being implanted on to these insects, which would be the only way they could be of any use in war. They can still carry chemical and biological weapons but that would violate existing war laws.

It's funny that they are expected to abide by the law during a war. The developers are saying that this is only the initial stage and practical cyborg insects are anything between two to 10 years away. [BBC news]

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Comments

  1. DCL said on December 24, 2018 at 4:11 am
    Reply

    You hear a person now with voice 2-way Nano tiny implants( Tiny little radio or C.B. like communitarians!)..(Many to even realize on the market now!) so small inside you like a speaker next to your inner ear drum embedded in-side your and people like taking these and using it to abuse others illegally and deliberately and without their permission hoping they can put you away in a nut house and it’s true as what has been read on the internet! Some think they can infiltrate into your life, set you up and even pay off past friends money to get rid of you with false lies also with using these new dangerous implant technologies it’s getting to be very dangerous and no one knows who could now have this stuff in them or what was put in them is not a targeting set up gadget for you or a medical device as what it is supposed to be used for!

  2. Jer said on March 18, 2012 at 5:03 am
    Reply

    Genetic mutations influenced by inorganic implants might surprise us with unpredictable outcomes as biological systems of micro-organic generations can propagate rapidly..

  3. Derrick said on October 21, 2009 at 7:41 am
    Reply

    Eventually the bugs will be able to replicate the electonics with a second brain and grow mini-machine guns, and then we’re all screwed!

  4. Jojo said on October 14, 2009 at 6:00 am
    Reply

    If anyone enjoys reading SF books that include content like, nano-machines, quantum mechanics, near light speed travel and galactic sized space opera, I suggest checking out the books by British SF author Alastair Reynolds. Most libraries have copies.

  5. Shailpik said on October 13, 2009 at 10:41 pm
    Reply

    This is exactly why we should all do bio data transfers to cyber brains and launch our conscious, digital-selves in to hyper space.

    Or may be I should just cut down on the Sci Fi movies.

    BTW, nice theory there Jojo, I like :)

  6. Jojo said on October 13, 2009 at 9:55 pm
    Reply

    These “bugs” will be only 1st generation devices. Subsequent generations will shrink down to nanomachine sizes. eventually, they will kill us all. This is why we have not discovered any other intelligent life in this universe. Every carbon-based civilization reaches the same stage, develops the same technology that eventually destroys everything they have built!

    1. Martin said on October 13, 2009 at 10:15 pm
      Reply

      We should be safe until these cyborg bugs begin to evolve and reproduce.

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