For LiveScience prolific writer Charles Q. Choi calls them cybugs for short: insects that might be modified with electronic implants that make them slaves of human controllers. Thus might be avoided all the bother of inventing itty bitty flying machines to carry cameras or other instruments to places not easily reached - at least, not easily reached with stealth. Why invent what nature already has evolved in exquisite detail, vast variety, and that operates with impressive efficiency and robustness? His account of these things, also sometimes called Hybrid Insect MEMS by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, lists roaches, horned beetles, and moths among insects that various teams are trying to transform into radio-controlled scouts.
LiveScience has tackled the topic before. In February last year it carried this, by Bill Christensen: Implants Create Insect Cyborgs. And a small story on the program ran more than three years ago in The Register, by Lester Haines. Choi's piece advances the ball a bit, listing groups that are trying to satisfy DARPA's aims.
Grist for the Mill: DARPA Hybrid Insect MEMS ;
Pic source ;
-CP
