DARPA: Cyborg Moths to Hunt Terrorists

DARPA: Cyborg Moths to Hunt Terrorists

aviationweek.typepad.com

Darpa's been looking for years at biological engineering, including building machines that act like animals and insects and using animals and insects in surveillance systems. The cyborg effort is part of Darpa's Hybrid Insect Microelectromechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) program and involves injecting computer chips into cocoons. The flesh then grows around the chip,

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.darpa.mil

Basically, a chip would be implanted into a insect and then used to controll the insect once it grows. Insect would be the ultimate in covert.

Im sure that bigger animals could be targeted next right down to man.

Mancurian Moth to manchurian Candidate

aviationweek.typepad.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

That is pretty cool.

I have to say I like the advancement in cybernetic technology, regardless of what field it's in.


I can just imagine it though, sometime in the next few decades someone is murdered in
a back alley where no security cameras are, however a swarm of cam-moths captures
it all from there position fluttering around the light near-by.

That can't be done, insects base their self on instinct, there is no nervos sistem, maybe it could be done on animals but animals don't grow in a coocon.

I have already rendered this technology useless by developing countermeasures in the form of a rolled up newspaper

I'd attach a sketch but I haven't been to the patent office yet to register the design or approached the Pentagon for a multimillion Dollar deal to further develop bugging countermeasures such as this.

[edit on 31-5-2007 by Britguy]

Originally posted by Britguy
I have already rendered this technology useless by developing countermeasures in the form of a rolled up newspaper

but Ill imagine they would unleash a storm of them.

Gives a whole new meaning to debugging the house eh?

I was actually more interested in the mind control aspect of this bugger. How long untill they can do this to a human fetus?

Originally posted by pepsi78
That can't be done, insects base their self on instinct, there is no nervos sistem, maybe it could be done on animals but animals don't grow in a coocon.

Insects, just like all macroscopic life, do have Nervous Systems.

Arthropods, such as insects and crustaceans, have a nervous system made up of a series of ganglia, connected by a ventral nerve cord made up of two parallel connectives running along the length of the belly. Typically, each body segment has one ganglion on each side, though some ganglia are fused to form the brain and other large ganglia.

Wiki

Apparently there has been extensive research done on the nervous system of these insects and how they actually mutate while in their cocoons.

Unfortunately, instead of using the message of peace and love we are again exploiting the planet and its eco-system because we can not control our lack and awareness there of. It's only a matter of time before we also have problems with this type of confused and defense originated technology.

The more offense created, the more defense that will be created. The more defense that is created, the more offense that will be created. A perpetual occurence and the consequence war. It's an endless game of chase the invisible goal and destroy&mutate every thing in your way to do so. When the direction of technology begins looking towards relieving the stresses of every day life other than getting hooked on pharmeceuticals and poisons that quicken life and lead to eventual depression and death, sometimes causing those on the drugs to create even more problems, then we'll have a peace full world because there will be no reason to fight.

Sooner or later we'll have to learn, by then every one may have probably felt the pain of our carelessness and destructive intentions driven by, in my opinion, religious fanaticism, proselytism, & dogma and personal narcissism.

[edit on 31-5-2007 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Originally posted by iori_komei

Originally posted by pepsi78
That can't be done, insects base their self on instinct, there is no nervos sistem, maybe it could be done on animals but animals don't grow in a coocon.

Insects, just like all macroscopic life, do have Nervous Systems.

Arthropods, such as insects and crustaceans, have a nervous system made up of a series of ganglia, connected by a ventral nerve cord made up of two parallel connectives running along the length of the belly. Typically, each body segment has one ganglion on each side, though some ganglia are fused to form the brain and other large ganglia.

Wiki

It's not really a brain, it's just for handleling primary functions that are based on instincts.
A bug can't remember anything, it can't store memories, it's incapable of taking instructions because it can't store them.
Can you imagine a bug even begining to understand what a street address is? and how to navigate there.
Maybe they can implement it in a lizard or something similar, since lizards grow in egs maybe they can inject that in to the eg.

Bees have no problem navigating.

We have the ability to navigate through reading, we have the ability to remember objects, and we also have the ability of touch for the blind. We could throw hearing in there too.

Bees do dances for each other to let one an other know where they have located pollen.

There is some form of memory there

Originally posted by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal
Bees have no problem navigating.

They too navigate by instinct, they navigate by sence, if you had a developed smelling ability to navigate where it smells good then you could do it too, it's the smell of the stuff in the flowers, sorry don't know what it's called in english, they have very sensible arays , that is how they find flowers so far away from home and that is how they return home, if you put a bee near the window with part of the window opened you will notice it does not know how to get out , chances are if the part of the window that is opened is smaller than the one that is closed the bee will hit the part of the window that is closed down and it will strugle on the window when the exit it's right near the bee.
They just have great antenas for navigating, they can sence flowers from the moment they leave home, they don't actuly remember paterns like maps , it's all about instinct aplied by their antenas.
Avoiding obstacles in the way is also based on instinct, it's a reflex, we have it too.

Bees do dances for each other to let one an other know where they have located pollen.

Oh pollen it was, I was not sure about the word, trust me mate everything they do is instinctual.


[edit on 31-5-2007 by pepsi78]

In that sense: every thing we do is instinctual. We navigate by our senses

All living things navigate by their senses, whatever their senses may be

[edit on 31-5-2007 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Originally posted by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal
In that sense: every thing we do is instinctual. We navigate by our senses

All living things navigate by their senses, whatever their senses may be

[edit on 31-5-2007 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

No, we navigate by patern, it's another thing to navigate in to a direction planed in advance and another to navigate in to a direction where the smell hits you first, that is instinct, it's just like visual, you navigate in the first place you see when you open your eyes or do you look around first and decide?
That is the difference.

ew...that's disgusting. It doesn't help my mottephobia much either.
Apart from the moth thing though, sounds like some interesting and useful technology.

Originally posted by pepsi78
No, we navigate by pattern, it's another thing to navigate in to a direction planned in advance and another to navigate in to a direction where the smell hits you first, that is instinct, it's just like visual, you navigate in the first place you see when you open your eyes or do you look around first and decide?
That is the difference.

Well, we are aware of what we experience as 'time'. There is a future, a past, and a present. Every thing we do in the past is planned in advance by the future, and future by the past (action/reaction, reaction/action). Of course we think we have a present moment, but the present is the future of the past, the past of the future, and only the present once we're able to realize it, and then it has already past. Then there is what some are calling the 'eternal now', the past, future, and present summed up as one.

Bees navigate by pattern as well. When they arrive back to the hive after a successfull find they do a dance, a dance that creates a pattern and a direction for the other bees of the hive to also find the pollen. The bees are communicating through pattern.

Awarenesses are relative. The bee is attracted to bright colors and sweet substances.

Bees can see, bees can smell, bees react, bees are a part of you and I.

You may find this interesting.

Bees as flying bloodhounds



Enjoyed the chat

Main point. Consider the lives of all living things no matter how small or how large, because it's all connected to the whole conscious organism of Earth

[edit on 31-5-2007 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Ironically, the posts conributed here are the beating of a butterfly's wings. Do not think that your contribution is a drop of water in an unreachable sea of thought.

We are all part of a greater fabric. Respect yourself and those who surround your and the fabric will not fail you.

Something I have to remember on occasion, as well....

Still - my take on all of this is that the moths will not be "controlled" rather than monitored extensively. Their senses will be added to by an addition of silicon hardware that can transmit data to the people wishing to get a better picture of what the moth is "seeing", for lack of a better word.

But what the spy report will generate won't be like some moving picture, at least not yet. It will be a complex pile of data to be combed through for evidence that could otherwise not be collected. It will only comprise a portion of the overall spy report that they need.

If the implanted hardware controls anything, it will be on the cellular level as the moths' bodies attempt to go about their daily business of regenerating themselves and growing. Don't we already have research showing what cellular signal does to living tissue??

why not use birds? I would think they would be easier than working with tiny insects, but I could be wrong.

Dug up this background info for you all, just in case there were any non beleivers still.

Microsystems Technology Office (MTO)
Program Manager of the MEMS Exchange (MX), Harsh Environment Robust Micromechanical Technology (HERMIT), Chip-Scale Atomic Clocks (CSAC), Navigation Grade Integrated Micro Gyroscopes (NGIMG), and Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS) programs in the Microsystems Technology Office of DARPA.
Dr. 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.
Hybrid Insect MEMS (HI-MEMS)

As linked in 1st post.

[edit on 31-5-2007 by ADVISOR]

Great. Terminator moths.

Now, on top of mind control waves in my TV, flouride in my water, I gotta worry about bugs spying on me for the CIA?

Now i gotta keep a can of Raid next to my titanium shieled tin foil cap?

I guess it gives a whole new meaning to the term "I'd like to be a fly on the wall".
This is fascinating. I don't know if it can actually work, but the theory itself is intriguing.