They are also delicious when they are deep fried. Because, everything is delicious when they are deep fried.
Posted on 02/24/2010 11:16:30 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The creature that’s expected to inherit the Earth following a nuclear holocaust might also be well suited to help prevent man’s atomic self-destruction.
Researchers at Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute have attached radiation sensors to the backs of cockroaches. They hope public-safety officials will one day send the souped-up insects into situations that are too risky for humans.
“Cockroaches really are the perfect medium for this,” says William Charlton, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the university and a principal investigator on the project. “They can go for extraordinarily long periods of time without food. They exist on every continent except Antarctica. They’re very radiation resistant, and they can carry extremely large amounts of weight compared to their body mass.”
He envisions teams of about 20 remotely-controlled roaches — each carrying one of three types of sensors meant to detect different nuclear materials — that would march through areas of up to a square kilometer and send their readings back to an operator via a tiny, low-energy communications system. This would help officials determine if potentially contaminated areas — such as buildings where they suspect terrorists have planted a dirty bomb — are safe for humans.
The operator will be able to manipulate the insects’ forward and directional movements — cockroaches can’t crawl backward — using devices that apply pressure to parts of their antennas and stimulate their leg muscles. “It’s like a cattle prod for cockroaches,” Charlton says.
Five faculty members and about six graduate students at the institute are working on the project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. They’re now designing sensors and communications systems that are small enough to fit on a roach’s back, and both devices will use low-energy circuits that could also be installed in cell phones
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaldefensemagazine.org ...
Wowser.
That’s cool.
Shoulda used Democrats...
They finally found a job my ex-wife is qualified for!
What if they catch radiation and grow 100 feet tall?
I know that they have done experiments with radiation and cockroches. They have put them in machines and atomic tests that treat cancer patients and exposed them to high doses of radiation.But insects turned out to be much more radiation resistant. Wood-boring insects and their eggs were able to survive doses of 48,000 to 68,000 rads with no apparent ill effect. In 1959, Drs. Wharton and Wharton found that it took 64,000 rads to kill the fruit fly, and a colossal 180,000 rads to be sure of killing the parasitoid wasp, Habrobracon Actually they are quite wimps. Other insects seem to breed while the cockroaches die.
At the moment, the real King of Radiation is a foul-smellingreddish bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans, or Conan the Bacterium by its admiring researchers.
They are filled with protein.
Dude, I've lived in the South, too. But - no. Not roaches. There's a limit, even when you're drinking longnecks at night in the summer with jalapenos. No.
You probably don’t want nutria in gumbo either...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coypu
Are chocolate covered ones the dessert?
sounds like you speak from experience :O
PETA will throw a fit.
Even scorpions.
Ummmm, sarc tag?
I moved to the Texas A&M campus from CA and had never seen a cockroach before in my life. My first experience was there, by the library. The thing was not only enormous, but fast, too. I squealed like a schoolgirl.
For the record, I am not and have never been a schoolgirl.
I think there is a bug in their plan. ;)
In Latin American countries they fly.
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