Scientists turned a bunch of cockroaches into remote-controllable cyborgs — and then built them little scuba suits so they can swim underwater, transforming them into powerful amphibian troopers.
Rest assured, they (the scientists, not the roaches) aren’t intent on world domination. Instead, they propose that one day a swarm of these biological drones could be used to poke around dangerous environments, such as disaster areas — or, even more ambitiously, other planets. They published a new study about the project this week in the journal Nature Communications.
“The ultimate goal is to [take this technology to] space,” study coauthor Hirotaka Sato Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, told New Scientist. “It’s kind of one step, one big step, towards space suits for cyborg insects. Exploration over the Mars surface, for example.”
Roboticists love roaches. The bugs’ cybernetic potential is so well studied by now that you can easily go and buy a DIY cyborg roach kit online. Roaches are also infamously hard to kill, and Sato’s team chose an especially hardy species called the Madagascar cockroach, which lives up to five years and are about the size of a human finger. Those are desirable traits to have, if they’re to survive on their own for extended periods in harsh environments.
