US Military Plans To Make Insect Cyborgs

Found on Spacewar on Wednesday, 15 March 2006
Browse Future

Facing problems in its efforts to train insects or build robots that can mimic their flying abilities, the U.S. military now wants to develop "insect cyborgs" that can go where its soldiers cannot.

The Pentagon is seeking applications from researchers to help them develop technology that can be implanted into living insects to control their movement and transmit video or other sensory data back to their handlers.

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.

The objective is to transform the insects into "predictable devices that can be used for various micro-UAV missions requiring unobtrusive entry into areas inaccessible or hostile to humans."

I don't mind when they fiddle around with robots, but abusing a living being is disturbing. This blurs the line between animal and object.