Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DARPA Funds Remote Control Sharks

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sunday-morning-new-baby dept.

An anonymous reader writes "From Undersea Spies: Turning Sharks into Robotic Sentries "It seems like science fiction, but the U.S. military would like to use sharks as underwater spies. The folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who dream up the future of weapons and military systems, envision squads of sharks prowling the oceans with sensors that could transmit evidence of explosives or other threats.""

23 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Now all that's missing by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    are the friggin' laser beams and head mounts...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Now all that's missing by msobkow · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, but the naval commanders could never pull off the pinkie-lip snear as well as they did in the movies. Plus, having a bunch of bald or balding military commanders making such comments would really freak people out. :D

      Didn't they used to do the same thing with dolphins back in the 1960's-70's? IIRC animal rights activists objected to the bottlenose being trained to carry bombs.

      Yikes! The US military was training sea life to be suicide terrorist bombers! :eek:

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    2. Re:Now all that's missing by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 3, Funny

      So, you expect to be able to open the account create page, fill in the details, submit your captcha three times, wait for your acceptance email, signin, re-find the page and actually type and submit your clichéd comment before a subscriber?

      Theres optimism if ever I saw it!

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:Now all that's missing by raphae · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Elaborate please...

      Sure I'll elaborate: think of all the experimentation it took to figure this out. How many times did the sickos cut open the skulls of sentient beings and mess around with their brains to get the results they wanted? How many failed experiments were there? How many grotesque atrocities were perpetrated in the operating room? Its not too hard to visualize the animal laying there on an operating table with its skull cut open and blood and brains everywhere while these "researchers" slopped about. Its absolutely horrific.

      And sorry, because a shark is a (very well-designed) predator that sometimes (but only rarely overall) attacks humans in no way excuses such ghastly abuse of other living organisms nor violation of their fundamental sanctity as beings.

  2. First five posts - all about lasers by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Please, how far can you beat a dead shark?

    1. Re:First five posts - all about lasers by WallaceAndGromit · · Score: 3, Funny

      Aparently to at least +5 funny

      --
      Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
    2. Re:First five posts - all about lasers by wik · · Score: 2, Funny

      This research is like kicking dead sharks down the beach.

      --
      / \
      \ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
      x
      / \
  3. Does that mean by lupine_stalker · · Score: 3, Funny

    That all the people killed in Jaws were terrorists and/or illegal immigrants?

    --
    Ninjas use italics.
  4. Not another laser joke by unitron · · Score: 3, Funny

    So does this mean that DARPA has officially jumped the shark?

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  5. Re:Attatch laser beams, and we have another sequel by stonedcat · · Score: 2, Funny

    I believe your post has jumped the shark.

    --
    You can't take the sky from me.
  6. it used to be dolphins by quixote9 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Really. They were even training them to do various things. (Look for subs or something. I don't remember.) There was talk of training them to attach mines to enemy vessels. Then an outcry began--rightfully, as far as I'm concerned--that it was a Bad Thing to use such intelligent and simpatico animals for this. Now, I see, they've moved to sharks. No lobby supporting them, I'll bet, but the military also won't be able to train them to do much. Sharks are well below flounders in brain power.

    1. Re:it used to be dolphins by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Really. They were even training them to do various things. (Look for subs or something. I don't remember.) There was talk of training them to attach mines to enemy vessels. Then an outcry began--rightfully, as far as I'm concerned--that it was a Bad Thing to use such intelligent and simpatico animals for this. Now, I see, they've moved to sharks. No lobby supporting them, I'll bet, but the military also won't be able to train them to do much. Sharks are well below flounders in brain power.

      They're not training them, they're remote controlling them

      http://www.bu.edu/alumni/buforward/archives/Dec_20 06/articles/spies.html

      DARPA turned to Jelle Atema, a College of Arts and Sciences professor of biology at the Boston University Marine Program, who for many years has been researching how marine animals use their sense of smell. Atema proposed that because sharks are expert at tracking odors over very long distances, the key to steering a shark was to follow its nose. With more than a year of DARPA funding, which ended last year, Atema was able to use electrical stimulation of a sharks brain, mimicking odor, to guide the shark around a large tank.


      So the simplicity of the shark's brain is actually an advantage. From the shark's point of view, it's chasing the smell, presumably, of prey.

      Interestingly, something like this happens naturally. Parasitic wasps perform brain surgery to zombify roaches.

      http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/03/wasp_performs _roachb.html

      Makes you wonder if you could do it with higher animals actually. Even though we seem to have aa certain amount of free will about how we achieve our objectives of eating and reproducing and avoiding pain, there's probably low level hardware in our the oldest parts of our brains which enforces those objectives by sending reward/punishment signals 'up' to the high level, conscious bits of our brains. I can imagine that if you attached electrodes in the right places, you could run mammals and even humans in remote controlled zombie mode too. It would be a hellish experience though, since you'd know your free will had been strongly curtailed.

      Still, look on the bright side, most /.'s seem to be quite skilled at ignoring the signals from their cerebellum to reproduce. So long as the evil scientists don't wire the neurons that reward you for successfully finding carbohydrate based junk food we should be immune.
      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:it used to be dolphins by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, I found this parasite fasinating

      http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?ne wsid=44092

      It knows how to regulate the human immune system for it's own purposes. It actually seems quite close to being a symbiote, since it can treat Crohn's disease. Reminds me a bit of Goa'uld in SG-1 actually.

      But I guess Rabies manages to change host behaviour in a way that encourages transmission.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    3. Re:it used to be dolphins by darkfire5252 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They already solved that problem.

      By using electricity to manipulate the nerves in the inner ear in the same way that the scientists are manipulating the nerves in the nose, scientists were able to make a person feel like they had to go a certain direction in order to keep their balance.

    4. Re:it used to be dolphins by IchBinEinPenguin · · Score: 2, Funny

      It would be a hellish experience though, since you'd know your free will had been strongly curtailed.

      For a second there I thought I was back in the Vista thread...

  7. I didn't know... by denttford · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...that DARPA has a division researching /. trolling.

    --

    Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
  8. Re:Please update me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's a line from Austin Powers where Dr. Evil says that what he wanted was sharks with lasers on their heads and the other guy has to explain that sharks are endangered and so they settled for the next best thing -- sea bass.

    Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
    Number Two: Sea Bass.
    Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
    Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
    Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
    Number Two: Absolutely.
    Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.

  9. DARPA or DHARMA? by SirBruce · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do the sharks have logos on them?

    Bruce

  10. The Only Thing Worse by jaypeg · · Score: 3, Funny

    The only thing worse than roving gangs of US Navy mind controlled sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads is a land shark from Mother Russia with a beowulf cluster!

  11. Overlords by youthoftoday · · Score: 3, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new robotic shark overlords.

    --
    -1 not first post
  12. Countermeasures by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think the main military benefit to this technology is that it will force hostile nations to build chum launchers as a countermeasure. The notion is so disgusting it will reduce reenlistment rates for their navies.

  13. Hello extinction, hello dupe by perrin · · Score: 2, Informative

    This proposal is unethical on so many levels. Most urgently - many species of shark are already nearing extinction, and if subs and other sea vessels that would like to go undetected start killing any sharks that come close "just in case", they will disappear quickly. As noted in this slashdot story: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/2 3/0214242, and this one: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/1 7/1815250

    Besides, this story is a dupe: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/0 2/0031225 was the previous one.

  14. Re:So far just BS comments by jeffeb3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I agree, it's horrible. Puting tracking devices on sharks is totally invading their privacy.