A research team led by Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz at the University of California, Berkeley, has created implantable bio-interfaces i.e. the electrodes and tiny radio antennae, to stimulate the nervous and muscular systems of cyborg beetles via a remote. The solar cells and piezo-electrics that harvest energy from movement power the electrodes. You could see these beetles developing into micro air vehicles (MAVs) for spying purposes in the near future.
How did they do it?
The researchers conducted experiments on two species: green June beetles from the southern US, and a much larger African species. A wire electrode is inserted into left and right optic lobes of the insects and is later connected to a micro-controller. The beetles responded well to commands pertaining to flight initiation, cessation and elevation, under a radio control while carrying the neutral simulators having the micro-controller and a micro-battery on their dorsal thorax. A particular series of electrical pulses to brain made these beetles take off. While these insects remained in flight for 45 seconds on average, a recorded flight lasted for more than 30 minutes.
Constant power supply is an area of concern:
Reid Harrison, an electrical engineer at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, says:
I’m skeptical about their ability to do surveillance for the following reason: no one has solved the power issue. Maybe we’ll have some advances in those technologies in the near future, but based on what you can get off the shelf now it’s not even close.
However, the project could be a success if they devise a lighter and more efficient power source.
Via: NewScientist/Treehugger
Good now present this product to the military for immediate deployment to the middle east ,this fine product could save lives
I have serious doubts regarding the viability of this project with out present technologies, primarily in the areas of electrical power capacity and its implications in terms of radio range and bandwidth capability.
45 seconds may not seem a lot of time, but for a soldier unaware of what may be around the next corner, that time could be time enough to be his or his platoon’s life saver.
I do not see in video a researcher’s ability for really exact driving the beetle. I have a great doubts that it possible.
They must hurry up and develop this fully - it would be a great way of eradicating dictators and avoiding nuclear war!
You are well indoctrinated & brain washed, Irene. Well Done !
Whose dictators Irene, theirs or ours? Why not let us all bow our heads and give thanks to the Federal Reserve credit masters for all funding without which this sort of research would never be possible? Sadly most people are unaware that they have been captured both mentally and physically by those who create the credit that we must now have to facilitate our daily affairs. Stop and think. If you had a resourse that everyone else had to have just to make their life possible they would be dependent upon you. You would have the ability to control their energies and to direct them for all your agendas. What is different about that and the slavery systems of the past? One thing. It works better; because you can strip the people of their autonomy while they continue to believe they are free. What better slave?
Isn’t anyone at least a little uneasy that these researchers are using living creatures to work their experiments? It introduces ehtical questions of enormaous scope. Can they use a rabbit next? A dolphin? A human?
I’m also wondering why only milatary implications are being referenced. $$ of course? I wonder if this technology has some very hopeful implications for people living with spinal chord injuries.
World war II we used dolphins to find underwater mines and plant explosives on ships. We also used bats to distrubute phosphorus grenades in all wood Japan mountainside subdivision. No one worried about the animals then. Maybe because they did not want to die invading Japan and facing an enemy whose greatest glory was to die in battle. Not to different than Iraq or Iran today. History does repeat it’s self and nobody learns.
Grant: Most current spies are humans. This is moving AWAY from the development you fear, not towards it.
Keep the Mortein on hand.
It won’t be long before BIG BROTHER has these flying around our homes and offices, spying on all of us.
Talk about overlooking your shoulder, and looking for that fly on the wall.
Maybe we could program them to attack suicide bombers, and expose the bombers to the public before any harm could be done to the innocent victims.
Maybe we could permeate them into the Afghanistan calvary?!
Let’s listen to our children,and find out how they would win the war and bring peace to the world!
Let those who are not yet brainwashed lead us out into a peaceful world!
Today’s students can be very creative if we let them!
This is not good way of spying strategy that insect is not survive at long time due to energy issue and camera inplant inside it could be imbalance and easy to destroy by wind or any disaster much better innovation to make a spy is a high definition and high resolution satelites that can tract via gps or heat sensors so that the image present very clear. even in long distance,
grammar fail (ronjersan). It was so difficult to read that I just gave up.
would this money, energy, effort, wisdon, knowledge, be better spent on stopping the senseless starvation of people in our own communities or countries?
