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Radio Controlled Cyborg Insects At MEMS 2009
Frankie Modellismo writes "During MEMS 2009, a Micro Electro Mechanical Systems conference taking place in Sorrento (near Naples in Italy), the University of California, Berkeley showed a wireless system to control a live rhinoceros beetle. The researchers controlled the movement of the beetle thanks to six electrodes installed in the insect's brain. The rhinoceros beetles can carry up to 3gr, and fly carrying the control module that weighs a little more than 1 gr." The page is in Italian, but the pictures speak for themselves.
I for one welcome our new wireless rhinoceros beetle overlords...
By why isn't MEMS used to make better STMs and AFMs? .. which you could use to make even smaller machines .. which could be used to make even smaller machines .. until you get to this stuff.
It's like they're not even trying.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Nikkei Microdevices has an interesting write up (in english) here: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090128/164717/
English version
This can surely cause some ethical discussions. Next we try to poke into a mouse, cat, dog,... human. The real question we should be asking here whether this should be done all the way.
I can see the benefits of using external stimuli, but when does that go over to control. A grey area ahead...
cybersects... talk about boosting performance and output...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
If you click on the scantly clad female on the top of the page, you come across a gallery that starts with "Hentai Manga Girls". Good thing I'm not at work!
Did they mean a gram?
... by tying a string around the beetle I could make that thing go where ever I wanted.
I don't need no estinkin'
Jeepmeister
That is right out of The Fifth Element when someone is spying on the president using a remote-controlled live beetle.
she doesn't need a reason to have a hammer. she can do what ever she wants and whatever they are selling will still sell. see? i bought five or six already
Yes the pictures do speak for themselves. But where are the details? I can tie an SBC to the back of my dog's head and then wrap some wire to it's nose also. That doesn't make it a remote controlled dog.
I want proof and a blueprint on how to do this to a beautiful woman, just saying.
How to track bug-trackers? Anyway, shouldn't this be called a MEBS, a micro-electro-biologic-system? It doesn't appear to have any mechanical components.
No I'm not a secret PETA spy or anything, and I'm not a conservative type, just a somewhat normal ordinary IT person. Can't help but think that this is animal cruelty tho, even if it is just a beetle. Electrodes implanted in its head to make it fly wherever you want? Thats not interesting, its sick.
also: yeah fucking right! Radio-controlled live beatles? What is this, retro sci-fi? I'd better check my calendar, cuz' it must be the year 2000!
They implanted a module with six neural electrodes into the beetles when they were still in the pupae stage, and so the beetles mature, they have the electronics already embedded into their bodies. At that point, a battery pack and receiver are added, and by sending radio signals, the beetle can be made to take off, land, fly forwards and backwards, and steer left and right.
Source
/. articles are so-so, some are amazing, and every once in a great while there's one that ... well, kinda scares the shit out of me.
... Are you a little creeped out because you believe beetles may have some form of free will and even if it's "just a beetle" they shouldn't be flown about like some kind of "machine"? What if we managed to create a machine with the intelligence of a Beetle? Not at all an unreasonable prospect... What if instead of reading about a biological breakthrough, you were instead reading about that little thing flying about... if violating the physical, biological beetle's freewill is appalling, should it not be appalling to do the same to the (theoretical) machine we just created? What happens when this gets to human level intelligences?
Alot of
This is one of those articles. Does this article kind of creep you out?
Rudy Rucker has a few interesting ideas of how this will all turn out, but in the end I believe most of those scenarios are a little too idealistic (but it's ok, because it's just (really good) sci-fi).
I really question if we're ready for this as a species.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
How long is its battery life? I understand that's a crippling factor in radio controlled bugs at the moment.
I'm not sure either. My only guess is the bikini laden ad on the right. But I wouldn't consider something like that nsfw. *shrug*