Another team of engineers seeks to enslave insects with cyborg technology to do the bidding of humans:
A team of engineers from Washington University in St. Louis is looking to capitalize on the sense of smell in locusts to create new biorobotic sensing systems that could be used in homeland security applications.
Baranidharan Raman, associate professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to use the highly sensitive locust olfactory system as the basis to develop a bio-hybrid nose. Joining Raman in the research are engineering colleagues Srikanth Singamaneni, associate professor of materials science, and Shantanu Chakrabartty, professor of computer science & engineering.
[...] For several years and with prior funding from the ONR, Raman has been studying how sensory signals are received and processed in relatively simple brains of locusts. He and his team have found that odors prompt dynamic neural activity in the brain that allow the locust to correctly identify a particular odor, even with other odors present. In other research, his team also has found that locusts trained to recognize certain odors can do so even when the trained odor was presented in complex situations, such as overlapping with other scents or in different background conditions.
"Why reinvent the wheel? Why not take advantage of the biological solution?" Raman said. "That is the philosophy here. Even the state-of-the-art miniaturized chemical sensing devices have a handful of sensors. On the other hand, if you look at the insect antenna, where their chemical sensors are located, there are several hundreds of thousands of sensors and of a variety of types." The team intends to monitor neural activity from the insect brain while they are freely moving and exploring and decode the odorants present in their environment.
Related: Insect–Computer Hybrid Legged Robot with User-Adjustable Speed, Step Length and Walking Gait
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As reported by ScienceNews.org:
Resistance may soon be futile. With machine implants worthy of a Star Trek villain, a new breed of beetle takes walking instructions from its human overlords.
Hirotaka Sato and his colleagues at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore inserted electrodes into flower beetles (Mecynorrhina torquata) to stimulate specific leg muscle groups. By altering the order of electrical zap sequences, the team was able to control a beetle's gait. Changing the duration of the electrical signals also altered the insects' speed and step length, Sato and colleagues report March 30 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
We have constructed an insect–computer hybrid legged robot using a living beetle (Mecynorrhina torquata; Coleoptera). The protraction/retraction and levation/depression motions in both forelegs of the beetle were elicited by electrically stimulating eight corresponding leg muscles via eight pairs of implanted electrodes. To perform a defined walking gait (e.g. gallop), different muscles were individually stimulated in a predefined sequence using a microcontroller. Different walking gaits were performed by reordering the applied stimulation signals (i.e. applying different sequences). By varying the duration of the stimulation sequences, we successfully controlled the step frequency and hence the beetle's walking speed. To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first demonstration of living insect locomotion control with a user-adjustable walking gait, step length and walking speed.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @09:23AM
Since when did Homeland Security become homeland security? The national terrorist establishment is so ubiquitous now that we don't even capitalize it anymore?
I have only one thing to say about these engineers: they're opportunistic scum who are taking blood money from evil warmongers to destroy American Liberty.
With 21st century technology and mindless obedient assholes doing his bidding, Obama is literally worse than Hitler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @09:31AM
What are you going to cry about in January 2017? That Obama left office but Hitler took his own life like an echter mann?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @09:39AM
Come 2017 if President Trump doesn't abolish Homeland Security you can be sure I'll continue to complain about it.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 08 2016, @02:58PM
Maybe Boris will run for president after he didn't get to be PM. Apparently he has US citizenship.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday July 08 2016, @03:11PM
Boris could just kidnap Trump and lock him up somewhere, put on an accent and take his place. Nobody would notice.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday July 09 2016, @04:50AM
I thought he had already renounced it but the latest from among the top search results only says he's aiming to/has started looking into renouncing it and most likely it hasn't been completed or effectuated yet. Linky linky [telegraph.co.uk].
Great picture btw :)
But anyway: no, I bet he wouldn't, it would be like Trump running for PM in Iran with the Ayatollah's blessing or Ken Livingstone getting any sincere apologies from the masses of historically ignorant crypto-fascist "anti-racists" in his own (and other) parties, and even if Boris did run and become POTUS the entire US (and maybe large parts of the globe) would keel over from massive cultural shock at the first "bloppity-blopp ergo sum grumble-flubb" (he nearly gave a visiting Schwarzenegger an instant seizure) and there would be no one left to "rule" over :D
The Japanese would survive though, and probably the Chinese too; they've both been inoculated by Boris visits afaik :3
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @04:57PM
Hitler was, still is and will forever be popular. He never lied. He did not bow down to Jews and therefore they hated him (declared war on his country on January 30th, 1933). And Jews like yourself still hate him today.
Obama, on the other hand was never popular and the world will be glad when he is gone. He lied to get into office and never fulfilled some of his major promises. Increased the rate of taking your rights and privacy and guns. Started wars to destabilize the world and continues to be the Jewish puppet and their front-man. He will make sure that the next Jewish puppet Hill-rary will get elected. Rules don't matter. Its OK to lie. Truth is for Nazis!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday July 08 2016, @11:59AM
> his team also has found that locusts trained to recognize certain odors
I didn't realise it was possible to train locusts.
I'd have thought you'd get more success *breeding* them to go after certain smells: Put odourless food with explosives in a big enclosure. Make sure this is the only food available. Allow locusts to search for food. Select and breed those individuals that find the food the quickest. Rinse, repeat over many insecty generations. It would be pretty cool to release a big swarm of insects and watch them all converge on the spot where the bombs are hiding. If you were to do it with some other bug that is less likely to get squished by passers-by (bees? ladybirds? Definitely not 'roaches) then it would be handy to have a population of these things permanently buzzing about security-conscious venues like airports.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @12:42PM
They tried to engineer blacks to robotically seek jobs, but found them to be as responsive as locusts.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 08 2016, @04:59PM
Since police dogs are all trained by their handlers (sometimes in secret, most times with departmental blessing) to alert on command, (as well as upon detecting any real bombs/drugs/electronics, etc) one does wonder how you surreptitiously train a bug to alert on command.
And since police and even the courts insist that their dogs are "officers" does this now apply to bugs too?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2016, @05:15PM
The money has to be spent on finding bombs instead of peaceful research. This is exactly what the world needs. More golf ball finders. Only if all bombs were found and disposed of, the world would be a perfect place; there would be fulfilling jobs for everyone and we would all be happy.
No, that is not how it works. The world works because there are people producing value, not disposing of bombs all day. Producing things, not finding ways to invade privacy and destroy things.
And what have you done (or are plotting to do) that you are scared of the people?