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DARPA Offers No Food for Thought
frank249 writes "Wired News has an article outlining the US Defense Advanced Research Projects agency's (DARPA) research into ways to keep soldiers fighting for up to 5 days without food. The DARPA project, called 'Metabolic Dominance' or 'peak soldier performance' is part of a wider, future-facing Pentagon research push to develop grunts who are pretty much immune to normal human demands. Perhaps they should call this the Universal Soldier project?"
Just tell them some really bad news, death in the family, girl friend dumped them, etc. When they are really depressed they won't want to eat for many days.
Ready commander?
;)
...wait a sec.... *looks around* A mob of zealots! Aaaiiii!
LOL, sorry I now have Starcraft marines running through my head. Stimpacks and all.
Nothing scarier than a mob of stimmed marines with range and strength enhancements.
Actually, I'm lying. A similar sized mob of zealots. *shivers*
*run away*
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Insert obligatory "I'll be able to code for days straight!" joke.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
will they allow the soldiers to keep the ears they collect ?
Who is this Karma guy and why is he bad ??
But I'm sure the DARPA solution will be much more expensive.
Uh..I mean peed skills.
We need a DARPA-sponsored program to keep kernel developers active and efficient for 5 days without food. And without do_mremap bugs, too...
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
"So Darpa, the U.S. military's far-out research arm, wants scientists to figure out if soldiers can operate at top levels -- without lunch breaks."
Sounds like my job requirements.
My old sig was REALLY stoopid.
LATEST NEWS: Dolph Lundgren and Van Damme have both said yes to become beta testers.
Only if we can rename the Missile Defense Agency to Skynet.
I do security
Any bets on how long before this becomes a competitor to Atkins and South Beach?
This ain't Ryouga Hibiki we're talking about. They don't become massively powerful when they get depressed.
/. discussion of super-soldiers.
Oi, I can't believe I'm talking about anime in a
I need to go get a life.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
its called cocaine
The best part of the article for me was reading the following section: The agency has a couple of ideas on how this might be done: A cocktail of nutrients or so-called "nutraceuticals" could help build endurance, and then realizing that the ad to the right of the text was an ad for Absolut Vodka.
I predict military enrollment numbers will soar.
--
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(COBOL, Fotran, PL/I, Assembler to COBOL,C, C++, C#, Java, etc.)
Check out Datatek, Inc.
is that considered food? if not, then i can survive without food for 5 day easily. :)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Um, experimental treatments to deny military personnel their basic needs would not be a good recruiting tool.
Instead, they should spend their research money building these.
THAT would make me want to join the army!
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
New and Improved LAN Party nutrition supplement now allows you to not only skip time wasting sleep, but time-wasting eating as well!
They're called the NFL.
Great, now our military goes to war with a sandwich strapped to their buttocks. Where is the dignity in that?
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
They might first want to start an educational program to make certain that every soldier is familiar with Murphy's Laws of Combat.
Near the bottom of the article:
"In addition to the required original and 5 copies of the proposal, proposers are required to submit an electronic copy of the proposal on a ZIP disk."
click click click damn
(lifted shamelessly from Tom Clancy's "Clear and Present Danger")
A research project into developing priests who can function for long periods without sex.
Hey, Viagra works for "my lil' general" pretty well, why not give the WHOLE body a shot of that shit.....
So now I have to compete with people who can play Diablo for 5 days without even taking a bathroom break????
Acute lead poisioning = Getting shot.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Wait, the US brought two wars to Germany?
Wow. I guess you can blame anything on the US if you try hard enough...
--RJ
Yes, we understand. G.I. Joes are a dispensable material. There is no need to feed them up when they may die. It's a plain waste of food.
Also, it reminds me of medieval common practice to pay only living soldiers after the battle.
There you are, staring at me again.
Why? The whole point is that society as a whole looks after the less fortunate. You might as well abolish the whole thing.
If you think MRE's are bad, I had a worse experience. I was in the 101st Airborne in the first Gulf War. When we went into Iraq, there was a supply snafu with our A-rations and we ended up eating chicken cacciatore 3 meals a day for two weeks. Made me want to find a Bedouin and steal a goat.
you must keep trim from your elevated blood pressure levels.
Your concern for the rest of us would likely be more effective if you didn't come off like lunatic...
Like all technological advances in history, it will first be used to kill people, then used in the porno industry... 5 day long gang bangs... go USA!
Jon Bardin
Foo: Am I missing something? I read the whole article and the part about lead poisoning made no sense.
Bar: Acute lead poisioning = Getting shot.
Moderation: +4
50% Funny
50% Informative
This is definitely an argument for another new moderation option: +1, Explaining the Joke. Although you could make an argument for -1, It's Not Funny Anymore If You Have To Explain It.
Myself, I'm still trying to figure out why I now get M2 twice a day, but haven't had M1 in months...
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I thought that MREs were meant to promote that