Insects
MAY end up playing a role in the military performing surveillance missions!
Unleashing the Bugs of War
So what's hot at DARPA right now? Bugs. The creepy, crawly flying kind. The Agency's Microsystems Technology Office is hard at work on HI-MEMS
(Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical System),
raising real insects filled with electronic circuitry, which could be guided using
GPS technology to specific targets via electrical impulses sent to their muscles. These half-bug, half-chip creations — DARPA calls them
"insect cyborgs" —
would be ideal for surveillance missions, the agency says in a brief description on its website.
Imagine the surveillance that could be done using an insect! It could just about go anywhere!
From DARPA's website:
Hybrid Insect MEMS - DARPA
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.
Sounds like something that 007 might use to spy on the bad guy.
Being insects are so small, I would be a little nervous if this technology got into the wrong hands. I could see companies/countries using them to spy
on their competition/enemy, or even neighbors spying on each other. It would be pretty easy to fly an insect into almost any building.
But hey, there's a lot more dangerous things that man has developed far more dangerous than a flying cyborg surveillance insects!
[edit on 20/4/08 by Keyhole]
