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This Week's Government Cyborg Animal
Security writes "The BBC writes "The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later. "."
I'm surprised they aren't trying to use them to deploy bioweapons. Lethal ones may be illegal but there are other alternatives. A bad case of the flu could turn a battle. They could be rigged to self destruct after they fed so they wouldn't spread the desease. Ironically bird flu in it's current form would be a good weapon since it doesn't spread through the air. The downside being the more people that contract it the more likely an air spread human variant would evolve. Hey no weapon is perfect.
What I don't understand is why this would be in the international wire reports. What happened to secrecy.
Sometimes the best weapon is the weapon that the bad guys *think* you have. If people start to believe they can be killed at any time or any place it can tend to make people want to give the bad guy game up.
The same principle is true, tell them there are 10 000 wacky ways that we can come and get them. They might not believe any of them, but you can bet they'll look twice next time a bug flies in the window.
Um... from whom, exactly? I'm pretty hesitant about it, and I can't imagine most ethics committees green-lighting anything of the sort.
~ Leilah
If the military wants an R/C cockroach with audio/video feed, they probably can't have it. But I'll bet they get close enough to push the technological envelope, and get them maybe the smallest camera and microphone ever.
Because someone wants something that doesn't exist doesn't make them dumb. It might make them unrealistic.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
i agree with you. in fact, it's a benefit that these people don't know science. Knowledgeable people often think first of the limitations - hindrances, impracticalities, etc to the reality of something. Because these non-science people don't know and are ignorant, it frees them from such limitations - in a sense allowing their imagination to run a bit more freely.
I can't recall - but someone did a study recently about how creative thinking decreased markedly with every year of post secondary education or something like that. My nephew just turned 10. His dad isn't around so I try (poorly) to serve as some form of role model. I've noticed, with some melancholy, that he's less whimsical and prone to fancy as he learns more and becomes more task oriented. It suddenly dawned on me that the school system is designed to squash imagination and producer worker drones. But I digress.
It's no one's fault for thinking up outlandish things - engineers should just incorporate the free-thinking meme a bit more and make these guys obsolete. That way - you'll have smart money chasing high yield ideas.
un burrito me trampeó.
Im not just a bleeding heart here. I cant see being trapped in a body that you are not in control of, but can still feel, must be the punishment in some level of hell. Its calous to just write-off all the other critters on this planet just because thier not "sentient". Frankly, apes have advanced social dynamics, are tool-using, can learn to do sign-language, paint interperativly, ect. They're only a few evoloutionary steps behind us. If fact, the only thing that seperates them from us is... Wait for it.... ETHICS Im an Intellectual, and an Athiest, and I still know its wrong to light cats on fire and throw them into my history profs front lawn. If you disregard ethics, you disregard a great deal of what makes us human.
More importantly and less obviously, what impact does it have on the world when no creature is allowed to cross a border or simply exist in their native environment without being considered a security threat?
Fishing for food is already measurably damaging our environment. What happens when we start fishing for defense? When migratory birds are shot down on sight? When the salmon spawning cycle is a security risk?
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
Dolphins trained to tear off diving gear of Vietcong divers and drag them to interrogation. Later, syringes placed on dolphin flippers to inject carbon dioxide into divers, who explode. About 40 divers thought to have been killed
I wonder what's the BBC's source for those stories. I've heard the story about tearing off the diving gear before, but it's generally regarded as an urban legend -- after all, it would be pretty difficult to keep the hypothetical killer dolphins from attacking divers on your side.
Also, I've never heard the thing about making divers explode by injecting them with CO2 syringes -- is that even physically possible? I'm fairly surprised, as I usually think of the BBC as being good about checking their facts.
Most probably, the same ethics committee that cleared the use of torture in Guantanamo base.
Sadly, I don't expect much ethics from these guys.
And yes, this is sickening.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com