Remote-Controlled Roaches to the Rescue? (video)
Ron Czapala
Posts: 2,418
Researchers create cyborg insects that may one day save earthquake victims
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=remote-controlled-roaches
The robot in WALL-E may have befriended a cockroach, but humans are more likely to react with revulsion than joy at the sight of one.
Would you feel differently, however, if you were trapped in a collapsed building or mine, and rescuers had sent a cockroach in to find you?
A team of researchers says it can harness the cockroach's uncanny survivability in ways that might someday benefit humanity.
The trick is to fire wireless signals at a roach's antennae and other sensory organs to guide it to a desired destination, says Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor in North Carolina State University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=remote-controlled-roaches
The robot in WALL-E may have befriended a cockroach, but humans are more likely to react with revulsion than joy at the sight of one.
Would you feel differently, however, if you were trapped in a collapsed building or mine, and rescuers had sent a cockroach in to find you?
A team of researchers says it can harness the cockroach's uncanny survivability in ways that might someday benefit humanity.
The trick is to fire wireless signals at a roach's antennae and other sensory organs to guide it to a desired destination, says Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor in North Carolina State University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.