DARPA creating a race of robo-grunts

The Defense Sciences Office of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking for a few good proposals to exploit soldiers in ways Rommel and Tojo could only have dreamed of.

"The vision for the Metabolic Dominance Program is to develop novel strategies that exploit and control the mechanisms of energy production, metabolism, and utilization during short periods of deployment requiring unprecedented levels of physical demand. The ultimate goal is to enable superior physical and physiological performance by controlling energy metabolism on demand," DARPA explains.

Rather, DARPA is interested in forcing soldiers' bodies to metabolize their own fat reserves, eliminating the need for food. It would like to overclock muscle mitochondria, increasing output beyond levels that the skeleton can withstand. It would like to suppress the painful signs of fatigue, so that soldiers can be pushed beyond the limits of human endurance without realizing it, at least until something breaks.