Cyborg Insect Spies

February 13, 2009

 What if the Pentagon implanted devices called micro-electrical mechanical systems, or MEMS, in insects to create swarms of tiny, remote-controlled cyborg secret agents, capable of flying or crawling into enemy territory to gather intelligence in places too well-guarded or dangerous for human spies?

Half-bugs, half machines could conduct surreptitious video and audio surveillance and carrying sensors to detect radioactivity or chemicals. But why stop there?

Keep reading...

Just as U.S. Predator drone aircraft have been equipped with missiles, it’s conceivable that insect cyborgs could be equipped with tiny but potent weapons, such as poison or hallucinogenic drugs, that they could use to attack high-value targets, such as a terrorist leader or a dictatorship’s key nuclear weapons scientist.

Utilizing insect cyborgs for intelligence-gathering and covert operations would have some enormous potential advantages. There’s a vast talent pool of potential recruits, since the planet’s insect population includes at least one million species that we know about, plus perhaps an even greater number that are yet to be discovered. And unlike James Bond, they’d work for cheap. Detecting miniscule secret operatives would be exceedingly difficult, and existing countermeasures against insects, such as bug zappers or insecticides, aren’t really all that effective, as anybody who’s been eaten alive by mosquitoes at a summer bar-b-q knows too well. 

The potential downside, though, might make you reach for your flyswatter. We could risk launching an insect arms race with Russia and China, and who knows where that might lead. A malevolent president could just as easily deploy insect cyborgs against homegrown political dissidents. (Some even suspect this already has happened, as this 2007 Washington Post article details.) And finally, the conscription of unwilling insects for military purposes is sure to be objected to by the nascent insect rights movement.

And no, I didn’t get this idea from the Onion,  as hoaxical as it might seem. (Rank me slightly higher on the skepticism scale than, say, a certain unnamed Chinese newspaper editor, who once lifted an Onion story about the U.S. Congress demanding a new Capitol building and reprinted it as fact.) To the contrary, I got it from the web site of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which actually is attempting to develop a MEMS capacity for insects.

Here’s a description  of DARPA’s Hybrid Insect MEMS project, which is being led by electrical engineer and computer scientist Amit Lal :

    The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis. These early stages include the caterpillar and the pupae stages. Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface. The goal of the MEMS, inside the insects, will be to control the locomotion by obtaining motion trajectories either from GPS coordinates, or using RF, optical, ultrasonic signals based remote control. The control of locomotion will be investigated using several approaches. These include direct electrical muscle excitation, electrical stimulation of neurons, projection of ultrasonic pulses simulating bats, projection of pheromones, electromechanical stimulation of insect sensory cells, and presentation of optical cues with micro-optical visual presentation. The intimate control of insects with embedded microsystems will enable insect cyborgs, which could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination.

Here’s more:

HI-MEMS derived technologies will enable many robotic capabilities at low cost, impacting the development of future autonomous defense systems. The realization of cyborgs with most of the machine component inside the insect body will provide stealthy robots that use muscle actuators which have been developed over millions of years of evolution. The basic technology developed in this program could also be used as a biological tool to understand and control insect development opening vistas in our understanding of tissue development, and provide new technological pathways to harness the natural sensors and power generation from insects.

As usual, this idea has been lurking around for years. Back in 1990, Tom Easton, a science professor at Thomas College in Maine, wrote a science fiction novel, Sparrowhawk, in which he envisioned the implanting of computer chips in insects and other animals.

In the early 2000s, researchers at the State University of New York and the University of Florida used brain implants to create remote-controlled rats whose movements and olfactory instincts could be controlled wirelessly from a distance. Since then, according to news reports, DARPA has developed the ability to implant devices into moth pupae and have created cyborg beetles whose muscles generate the electricity to power instruments.

In late January, the Japanese web site Tech On! that at a conference in Italy, DARPA-funded University of California, Berkeley scientists showed a video of a radio-controlled rhinoceros beetle.

Researchers at the university controlled the movement of beetle wings and some other parts using radio signals sent to the six electrodes on its brain and muscles. They equipped the beetle with a module incorporating a circuit to send signals to the electrodes, wireless circuit, micro-controller and battery. The university has so far succeeded in several experiments of electrically controlling insects, but it used a radio control system this time.

The researchers used rhinoceros beetles in this experiment because they can carry a weight of up to 3g. They can fly carrying the module weighing about 1.3g on their backs. And another reason is that they look cool, according to the university.

So we know that it’s possible. But should the government go ahead and create an ant-farm version of the CIA? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Marty]

Next thing, they'll be creating human-insect hybrids, like in "The Fly." Where will it all end?

[Mike James]

Is this really possible? The implanted devices would have to be really, really tiny, wouldn't they?

[Natural Man]

Is this the same thing as those robotic dragonflies that people saw at antiwar rallies a few years ago?

[butterfly valves]

Knowing the importance of actuators in the valve industry will positively keep us in track.Thanks for sharing this information.Good Day!

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

Cyborg insect spies would be difficult to detect, but I can easily spot the presence of a spammer trying to draw traffic to the web site of his corporate masters.

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

The official web page of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Insects...
http://spci.dsturgeon.net/mosquito.html

[Mothra]

It seems to me that you could just swat one of these cyborg insects and eliminate the whole threat.

[Teresa Byrtus]

What kind of threat would these cyborg insects pose to the environment? If the government disburses millions of non-indigenous altered bugs, wouldn't that upset the ecological balance?

[John Brisker]

Yet another way that the government has found to waste our money.

[Groovy Grove]

I liked the one about pleasure implants better than the robobugs.

[sandra mclaughlin]

Our private business, BAE Systems, has already created these spy insects. Check it out.

[steve]

Just build a bunch of 'SEVEN of NINE's'. Then men would forget about fighting. Part Borg, All Babe.

[Patrick Kiger]

Indeed, BAE is working on miniature robotic insects.

http://www.baesystems.com/BAEProd/groups/public/@businesses/@eandis/documents/bae_publication/bae_pdf_eis_2008-12_yr_review.pdf

For the Advanced
Systems & Technology
group, 2008 was the year
of MAST — the Micro
Autonomous Systems and
Technology alliance that
is developing miniature
robots styled after insects.
Outfitted with cameras and
sensors, the mini-robots
could become a soldier's
best intelligence-gathering
tool in urban environments

[Patrick Kiger]

Seven of Nine? She's so...1997. Here's a video clip of the Actroid DER2, an remarkably lifelike pseudo-female android, talking to the crowd at a Japanese robotics convention in 2006. (Not sure why she's wearing an "I (heart) Hello Kitty" shirt.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sjV_lxSVQo&feature=related

[R2-N2]

Yet again, sci fi becomes reality.

[SaraJ]

Paranormal Type of Dream: Dreamt of a Black Spider in My Right Ear

The morning of September 27th, 2009, at 4:00am, I dreamt like a paranormal type of dream but it felt 100% real.

I was laying flat on my back with my face facing toward the ceiling. With my eyes closed, I felt something coming down closer in-between where my eyebrows meet - barely touching my skin.

As I opened my eyes, I saw a black spider, the size of a nickel, hoovering in-between my eyebrows on a spider web. That spider web reached from the left to the right side of my face – crossing over my eyes.

At the same time while my eyes were still open for approximately 1 second, I saw light closing from a foot from the ceiling going up to the ceiling in a cone shape; and as if the black spider came through this light – the room was completely dark and there were no other light in this room. This light that I saw would be like a light a person who was dead would claim to see when they are supposedly taken to another place.

I immediately closed my eyes in fear the black spider will sting one of my eyes or my face caused by the movement of my eyelashes.

I felt fully awake and I tried to push this black spider off my face but my arms were like rubber (as if they were asleep) and I couldn't reach the black spider to move it. Nor could I move the rest of my body or head. It felt as if my body and head were like weight of cement - impossible to move.

Within an instant, I felt the black spider move to the left of my face. Then like a speed of light, the black spider rushed into my right ear.

In the instant the black spider went into my right ear, I was able to move my arms and hands - I was fully awake. I immediately tried to get that black spider out of my ear with my finger (without causing any damage to my ear). But I felt nothing.

This black spider was light and felt like a real spider. However, it behaved like a mechanical spider knowingly it needed to get into my ear.

The same afternoon, I've had two minor migraine headaches (that lasted a few short minutes each) on the top, left side of my forehead; which is extremely rare that I get migraines (I may have had a total of 10 migraines at the most in my lifetime - I'm 45 years of age). And throughout the day, I've had a slight earache in my right ear where the black spider entered.

This dream lasted a total of about 5 seconds and it actually felt 100% real. I cannot explain what has happened - besides that it may have possibly been a dream.

Has anyone have this experience before? Can anyone explain this dream?

This is extremely important to me because of what I do. And because I may disorder what the dream may mean, I will not say what I do at this time.

Depending on the responses, I may explain what I do and what I'm facing with in my life.

Thank you,

SaraJ

[Light]

Everyone should get a copper helmet that protects your ears as well. Ive been standing up to Zionist terrorism for 5 yrs now, recently a robotic fly went in my ear and now my head hurts. Tons of my friends from years past say strange things to me. Its an RFI system of total control. If you understand how the brain operates on electro-magnetic impulses and how placing your mind in the RFI total control system you would understand how your thoughts and behaviors can be manipulated. Any negative response to my comment will be a manipulated response. Get a copper helmet today and start living free from Zionist terrorism. All the comments people will make toward you will be RFI manipulated and you can sit there smiling knowing the deception free from any manipulation. I am a peaceful unarmed civillian without a thought of harming myself or anyone else. The Zionist terrorists hate me. Save yourself with a copper helmet and copper mesh living quarters.

[aco]

I saw flying "insects" at my home but they disappeared in front of my eyes when I tried to look at it closely or catch it and keep it for a few minutes to see if they were a real insect as I knew there was something wrong with that particular insect (normally I just let those flying insects fly around and they just come and go). In the last two years, I saw these "insects" at least three times . Sometimes it was a mosquito, sometimes it was some flying bugs.

[investment costa rica]

A curious fact is that according to studies conducted, earaches are worse at night. Why? This is because during the day, keeping the head erect and the Eustachian tubes drain naturally to the back of the throat. In addition, chewing and swallowing muscles make opening the tubes and allow air into the middle ear.

[yiwu fair]

Last month, promotional gifts the Indian ambassador to the U.S.,promotional items Ms. Hill presented the Dakar after diplomatic status by the United States remains strong airport security personnel search.wholesaler This makes India very dissatisfied.

[Discount UGG]

You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long. O(∩_∩)O~

[yiwu agent]

Is a complete pleasure to have the opportunity to express my opinion in an article as interesting as this, I think this is a small beginning for future generations have a very good example of what is the correct way to publish an article, many Thank you for sharing this information, congratulations!

[rubber gasket]

the government has found to waste our money.