Remote-Controlled, “Cyborg” Flying Insects Exist: The Goal is the Ultimate Spy
Creepy, really brings the expression “a fly on the wall” to life. Ewen Callaway reports in New Scientist:
It’s tempting to call them lords of the flies. For the first time, researchers have controlled the movements of free-flying insects from afar, as if they were tiny remote-controlled aircraft.
By connecting electrodes and radio antennas to the nervous systems of beetles, the researchers were able to make them take off, dive and turn on command. The cyborg insects were created at the University of California, Berkeley, by engineers led by Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz as part of a programme funded by the Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The project’s goal is to create fully remote-controlled insects able to perform tasks such as looking for survivors after a disaster, or acting as the ultimate spy. (Read more on New Scientist)
