Cyborg cockroaches can hear you call and scurry to the rescue

chicagotribune.com ^ | November 7, 2014, 11:20 PM | Rachel Feltman, The Washington Post

[BenLurkin]

Cockroaches are tiny and resilient, perfect for getting through the nooks and crannies of a disaster zone. If rescue workers can control them and have them carry mics and cameras, they can be used to track down survivors.

This work, published in IEEE Sensors, is a great step in that direction. The researchers equipped their latest biobots with an array of microphones, which together can detect the direction of a sound and steer the biobot toward it.

Right now, the microphones pick up any sound at all -- whether or not it's important. The next step is teaching the system to pick out important noises, like human voices. There's a long way to go, but rescue roaches are certainly on the horizon.

[cripplecreek]

Many years ago in a popular science magazine that was old then, I read that we would all be riding in cars that were genetically modified insects.

I want my VW Beetle dammit!

[left that other site]

The ones we have in Florida are big enough to carry the victims out of the danger zone.

[cyn]

It’s true.

They can also carry a cask of brandy around their necks for tourists in peril.

[Interesting Times]

[max americana]

Cockroaches scurrying? I heard that on the night the Dems lost last Tuesday.

[left that other site]

Is THAT what those little things are?

I wish i hadn’t squished them! A few thimbles full and i would have had a shot!

[lee martell]

If this idea is mainstreamed, the public will need to become both educated and somewhat desensitized to the sight of those bugs. If I saw an oyster sized roach running to my rescue, i would be fighting the urge to kill it dead on the spot.

[Politicalkiddo]

I hate cockroaches. They’re up there with mice and rats.

[dfwgator]

They’re up there with mice and rats.

Watch it!

[Rebel_Ace]

From The Fifth Element, circa 1997:

[catnipman]

Trained termites could carry even SMALLER cameras and microphones, and trained bacteria could carry nano-cameras and nano-microphones.

[tumblindice]

I lived in a cheep apt. on the edge of a barrio in San Diego.
My cockroaches would turn down my bed covers in the evening.

[Flick Lives]

Whatever you do, don’t eat the mint they leve on the pillow.

[familyop]

Roaches bring risks of deadly diseases and allergic reactions.

[tumblindice]

I’m finding big pink mints in a public room downtown, in this sink next to machines that sell things.

[a fool in paradise]

So instead of building a better mousetrap, now they are trying to build a better cockroach.

[left that other site]

Yep!

There is a legend that they were the only life form that survived ground zero at Hiroshima.

[null and void]

Or use them to spy.

Or worse

Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!

To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don't add you to the list...

[Nifster]

that’s just creepy