U.S. Military Plans to Make Insect Cyborgs

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

by Shaun Waterman
United Press International

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0314-03.htm

<snip>

In an announcement posted on government Web sites last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, says it is seeking "innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect cyborgs," by implanting tiny devices into insect bodies while the animals are in their pupal stage.

As an insect metamorphoses from a larva to an adult, the solicitation notice says, its "body goes through a renewal process that can heal wounds and reposition internal organs around foreign objects, including tiny (mechanical) structures that might be present."

The goal is to create technology that can achieve "the delivery of an insect within five meters of a specific target located at hundred meters away, using electronic remote control, and/or global positioning system." Once at the target, "the insect must remain stationary either indefinitely or until otherwise instructed ... (and) must also be able to transmit data from (Department of Defense) relevant sensors ... including gas sensors, microphones, video, etc."

The move follows challenges the agency says it has encountered in its efforts to train insects to detect explosives or other chemical compounds, and to mimic their flight and movement patterns using small robots.

-----------------------------------------

This is the stuff of Dave Barry columns---and how I do miss him. This story reminds me of
a column he wrote years ago (maybe 15 years or more) regarding the Pentagon's plans to use
bats as a means of bomb delivery---it was very funny. I've tried to find it using Google but
with no success. If somebody more proficient with Google than I, which I'm sure most of you are,
could find it and post the link here, you'd certainly have my thanks and a hardy salute for your
Google prowess.

mj24

[Kerrytravelers]

1. Is there any place on this earth where I can hide?

I fear technology- especially with this government! :scared:

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. I too would like a place to hide from these people...

...They are scary.

[wtmusic]

3. What is coming in the not-too-distant future

are small, inexpensive, lightweight "microcopter" drones, armed with scaled-down automatic weapons. Just imagine--thousands of the little radio-controlled critters flying around taking out those nasty terrorists (or those nasty unpatriotic protestors) :scared:

[Kerrytravelers]

5. Hi wtmusic!

Been a while since I've seen you! :pals:

Have you been to Drinking Liberally lately?



P.S. Mr. kt says "hi!" :hi:

[wtmusic]

8. hey there, kt

:hi: backatcha.

Did you go tonight?

[Kerrytravelers]

9. Nope! I went to Yoga instead. Gotta lose the "beer weight' I get from DL!

[wtmusic]

10. heh

Miss you guys. I've had all kinds of weird things going on around here. Maybe we can catch up next week.

[Kerrytravelers]

32. Sounds great! See you at DL?

[Mythsaje]

4. Saw it coming...

Then again, that should be no surprise either, given my sig line. ;)

[DemInDistress]

6. bat bombs..

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

7. If somebody finds that...

...old Dave Barry column I promise you we'll all have a good laugh---it really was a great one.

[ThoughtCriminal]

11. Welcome our new insect overlords!

"One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves." - Kent Brockman

[1932]

12. They'd make great little assassins. I'd like to get an insect cyborg to go

Terminator 3 on the pests that infest my house.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

13. What kind of pests infest your house? If you don't...

...mind my asking.

[1932]

14. Last year I caugh a mouse.

And after it rains, there are millions of ants.

I'd have the cyborg kick the mouse out of town. However, for the Queen Ant, I'm thinking more along the lines of Martin Sheen's character taking out Kurtz, Appocalypse Now stylee, and I wouldn't be using chemicals, which would be the good part.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

15. We have trouble with...

...fire ants here in Texas. I just try to keep them away from the house. There's a product called Amdro that seems to help keep them at bay---there's no getting rid of them though.

[1932]

17. A cyborg Willard ant that can sneak up to the Queen Kurtz ant

and take her out ... that might do the trick.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

20. The cyborg Willard will have...

...to take out 20 to 50 fire ant queens per mound. They used to be one queen per mound, but thanks to indiscriminate overuse of mound drench chemicals they now have multiple queens per mound.

[1932]

21. If he doesn't get out of the boat, he'll be fine.

Incidentally, I don't love the smell of mound drench chemicals in the morning.

However, it is true that the problem with fire ants is fire ants don't surf.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

28. Or maybe the problem is...

...they DO surf! And just want us to think they can't. Didya ever think a that?

[anotherdrew]

16. just wait for "the kill option" who knew so and so was alergic to bees?

another day another piece of cyberpunk creaps off the page into reality...

[Mithras61]

31. I think you may have a point here...

didn't W_rong remove the Presidential order prohibitting assassination? This would be a much easier method than poison cigars...

[shanti]

18. you can't make this up

:eyes:

[FVZA_Colonel]

19. *Insert mandatory Borg joke here*

n/t.

[Quantess]

22. Playing God?

This sounds like they are messing around with mother nature, "playing God", something the * Administration claims to decry whenever convenient. Am I mistaken, or aren't the repukes saying cloning frogs is bad, stem cell research is immoral, and unplugging Terri Schiavo from feeding the tube is inhumane? But cyborg insects are neato? What hypocrites!

[mogster]

23. Here's another link, to the Guardian

Pentagon's new weapon - cyborg flies that are spies
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1731037,00.html

In some years, they could propbably mark an insect with some targets specific genoma, then send it out to kill.

Insects that bug people - is this the ultimate 'solution' to terrorism?
Did you read about Britain's chicken-heated nuclear mines during the cold war, btw?

Cold war bomb warmed by chickens
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3588465.stm

Sometimes reality is just beyond imagination, and to make it all worse, the news was published April 1st.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

27. From the bomb warmed by chickens piece...

<snip>
The bomb was designed to stop the Red Army advancing across West Germany during the height of the Cold War...

...In a 1957 document they proposed live chickens would generate enough heat to ensure the bomb worked when buried for a week.

The birds would be put inside the casing of the bomb, given seed to keep them alive and stopped from pecking at the wiring.

The land mine would be remotely detonated.

---------------------

So if I'm regular Ivan Red Army infantryman, walkin' along across West Germany, mindin' my own business, not botherin' anybody, I can not only get my body ripped apart by one of these mines, but in my last moments before I bleed out and die, I have to endure the indignity of chicken entrails, not to mention feathers, raining down all over me? My GOD, man, where's the humanity?

I think chickens need better representation.

If I were a chicken I would teach my young to always peck at the wiring.

[DeepModem Mom]

24. Huh? nt

[genie_weenie]

25. 'Sarah Conner?'

[Vidar]

26. Aids didn't work well enough. Let's unleash another horror.

[Ignis]

29. I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

They can't be any worse than the BFEE!

[Taverner]

30. This is pretty much a literal "bug"

[Zodiak]

33. I am an entomologist

about to graduate with my PhD. This story is crap. You know, the Army is always trying to get us Ents to join up for these stupid programs (they want us to cure malaria so they can invade tropical countries with less risk). The dumbest among our graduate students are invariably the ones who go, if they get through the program at all. I wouldn't worry about this...just someone writing a grant who has no idea how involved a project like this would be. After all, once you implant it, how the hell can you control it? We are just learning about insect memory and these guys want to make cyborgs?

Please.

[cliss]

35. So, the target audience is enlistable young men....

...with an aptitude in science, preferably biology. What a waste of potential.

You wrote this about your fellow science majors: "The dumbest among our graduate students are invariably the ones who go.." Instead of 'dumb', how about "trusting", "naive", or "misled by science fiction tales told by the military".

Young, bright minds with an aptitude for science may or may not be the wisest, jaded, people. Your post and the content of this thread, if true, is alarming and sad.

[Zodiak]

36. When I say "dumb" I mean "dumb"

"trusting" and "naive" grad students can be cured as long as they are facts-oriented. Dumb ones run off to whomever wiggles a potential job in their face. I refer to grad students who barely got in the program, do not do work while here, and try to get by with the minimum effort and desperately hope no one actually finds out they do not know what they are doing.

I am not talking about those who are going to graduate....I'm talking about the ones who do not graduate and end up in the Army as an "entomologist". Trust me...the Army is not getting the best ones, or even the mediocre ones...they are getting the dumb ones who come up with dumb ideas like the one in the OP. This program is not feasable with what we know about insect neurobiology and metamorphosis. It is a pipe dream.

Think of it this way...so you build an electronic bug into a housefly. How do you get it to the target? Do we wire directly into their brains? We cannot because the brain is not used to control motor function. How about the neurolemma of the ganglia? Well, that is great, but you need a microsurgeon to hook up the the appropriate neurons (which are multpolar neurons, unlike mammals). But then you have to worry about coordination. What's more, the fly only lives for two weeks, so your bug is out of commission after that. Has anyone addressed weight and weight distribution? How about interference with flight muscles, which are carefully coordinated to allow insect flight. There are also issues with the apodemes not being deep enough to allow the flight muscles to attach properly, or the fact that the apodeme does not pull down enough on the scutellum.

They are better off building a tiny robot with their toys in it.

I do not mean to be rude, but "dumb" is how I describe them. They do NOT have an aptitude for science and typically linger here in school for years before they are kicked out...unless of course, the Army wiggles a job in their face and they get an opportunity like this one to show us that are really in the field how little they actually know.

No one has anything to fear from bees and beetles coming into your house with Army-researched electronic devices inside them. Or sharks with friggin' lasers attached to their heads.

[alfredo]

34. found one that spoke of using bats for missile defense.

http://www.tabulas.com/~roy/content/90.html

[fshrink]

37. It already exists. Wolfowitz is prototype #1.