This Week's Government Cyborg Animal 202
Security writes "The BBC writes "The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. The idea is to insert micro-systems at the pupa stage, when the insects can integrate them into their body, so they can be remotely controlled later. "."
The Pentagon has too much money dept (Score:3, Funny)
"Pentagon defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions", what could go wrong ?
Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas (Score:5, Informative)
01 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Susan Brown
IMAGINE getting inside the mind of a shark: swimming silently through the ocean, sensing faint electrical fields, homing in on the trace of a scent, and navigating through the featureless depths for hour after hour.
We may soon be able to do just that via electrical probes in the shark's brain. Engineers funded by the US military have created a neural implant designed to enable a shark's brain signals to be manipulated remotely, controlling the animal's movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling.
That team is among a number of groups around the world that have gained ethical approval to develop implants that can monitor and influence the behaviour of animals, from sharks and tuna to rats and monkeys. These researchers hope such implants will improve our understanding of how the animals interact with their environment, as well as boosting research into tackling human paralysis.
More controversially, the Pentagon hopes to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted. The project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), based in Arlington, Virginia, was presented at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, last week.
Neural implants consist of a series of electrodes that are embedded into the animal's brain, which can then be used to stimulate various functional areas. Biologist Jelle Atema of Boston University and his students are using them to "steer" spiny dogfish in a tank via a phantom odour. As the dogfish swims about, the researchers beam a radio signal from a laptop to an antenna attached to the fish at one end and sticking up out of the water at the other. The electrodes then stimulate either the right or left of the olfactory centre, the area of the brain dedicated to smell. The fish flicks round to the corresponding side in response to the signal, as if it has caught a whiff of an interesting smell: the stronger the signal, the more sharply it turns.
The team is not the first to attempt to control animals in this way. John Chapin of the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn has used a similar tactic to guide rats through rubble piles (New Scientist, 25 September 2004, p 21). Chapin's implant stimulates a part of the brain that is wired to their whiskers, so the rats instinctively turn toward the tickled side to see what has brushed by. Chapin rewards that response by stimulating a pleasure centre in the rats' brains. Using this reward process, he has trained the rodents to pause for 10 seconds when they smell a target chemical such as RDX, a component of plastic explosives.
The New York Police Department is considering recruiting Chapin's rats to its disaster response team, where they could be used to detect bombs or even trapped people, and Chapin met them to discuss the possibility last month.
However, Chapin's "mind patch" only works in one direction: he can stimulate movement or reward an action, but he cannot directly measure what the rat smells, which is why he has to train them to reveal what they are sensing. DARPA's shark researchers, in contrast, want to use their implant to detect and decipher the different patterns of neural activity that indicate the animal has detected an ocean current, a scent or an electrical field. The implant sports a small pincushion of wires that sink into the brain to record activity from many neurons at once. The team plans to program a microprocessor to recognise which patterns of brain activity correlate with which scents.
Atema plans to use the implants to study how sharks track chemical trails. We know that sharks have an extremely acute sense of smell, but exactly how the animals deploy that sense in the wild has so far been a matter of co
Ethical Questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:4, Funny)
I'd get a cyborg monkey. If my parents ever complained that my basement was getting too messy all I'd have to do is add a cronjob.
I for one welcome our new Linux-running cyborg monkeys.
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Make that your
Cyborg Monkeys (Score:2)
They get down and boogey disco style!
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
So? They are non-sentient creatures. Furthermore, we are talking about non-sentient cyborged
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Priceless...
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Re:Not so great a link. (Score:2)
Yes, the link I presented is almost certainly inappropriate as evidence
No Ethical Questions here (Score:2)
I can't make my body do a somersault. A saddled horse can neither kick off the rider nor spit our the reigns. An elephant will charge into battle solely because its guide controls him. A camel may die in the desert, because its rider made a mistake or "pushed the envelope" deliberately (see "Lawrence of Arabia" [imdb.com])...
Humans have used animals in many aspects of life — inc
Re:No Ethical Questions here (Score:2)
I suspect, you never rode much...
You are attaching a human emotion to an animal. A common mistake.
Regardless, even if the horse were horrified, if its suffering can reduce or eliminate the suffering of a human, than it is ethical for us to use it.
And always was. Think, again, about the lab
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Actually, the fact that we can disregard ethics (which is entirely a human conceived notion) is in fact what makes us human. Animals and insects are incapable of disregarding ethics since ethics don't apply to them. Like us, they can only be what they are.
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:4, Informative)
They are aware and capable of feeling pain, distress and at least rudimentary emotions, the impact and value of which are immeasurable in humans who can tell us what they're thinking. How fair is it to impose these things on creatures who can feel but cannot express?
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:3, Informative)
You keep using that word but I think it doesn't mean what you think it does...
(from The New Oxford Dictionary of English 1998)
FYI, most of our planet's lifeforms are sentient. And apes are litterally cousins to us. Turining them into remote controlled zombies is pretty much the same as doing it to a member of a remote human tribe.
Most vertabrates also have a good perception of their own body. Depriving them of it certain
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
"actual, solid, rational reasons" - can you give anyone solid rational reasons for things such as not breaking your face with a baseball bat for example? I'm thinking th
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Fishing for food is already measurably damaging our environment. What happens when we start fishing for defense? When migratory birds are shot down on sight? When the salmon spawning cycle is a security risk?
Pidgeons (Score:2)
I was watching a program not that long ago about the use of carrier pigeons in World War II, as a communication method for spies. Both the Germans and the British made use of them, and at one point the British -- attempting to reduce the loss rate due to native predatory birds -- put a bounty on hawks and other birds of prey on the Southern coast of England. The Germans went the other way, and supposedly investigated using falcons to intercept and kill pigeons in occupied Fran
Ethical questions explored in depth right here (Score:2)
Re:Ethical Questions (Score:2)
I would love enhanced vision, total recall, indexible memory, downloadable kowledge, direct interface with a computer, and all that good stuff.
-nB
wait... I get to keep my free will right?
Re:Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... from whom, exactly? I'm pretty hesitant about it, and I can't imagine most ethics committees green-lighting anything of the sort.
Re:Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, I don't expect much ethics from these guys.
And yes, this is sickening.
Unethical behavior not surprising (Score:2)
That's quite simple. All one needs is an UNethical ethics committee!
In the recent past, I attended "ethics training" where I worked. The presentation stressed the importance of logging an accurate number of hours for each job/task performed. It cautioned us against unethical behavior such as cooking the numbers slightly or playing with hours worked (such as working 48 hrs o
Re:Wrong hands? (Score:2)
Was that the laughter of an evil-doer who has gotten a hold of this technology, or was that the laughter of Dick Cheney, who now has a new way of shooting people in the face?
Oh, wait. There's not much difference, is there?
Re:Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas (Score:2)
I spent almost $1,000 on a coffee maker [amazon.com] and it's the best money I ever spent! :-) You haven't lived until you've tasted freshly roasted, ground, and brewed coffee (w/o a paper filter!) - and all except the roasting at the touch of a button!
Re:Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas (Score:2)
so you are either lying, rich, or bad with money.
but I suppose the above are not mutually exclusive.
Re:Stealth sharks to patrol the high seas (Score:2)
I wonder what the range on this sense is, if in fact it exists, and whether it could be useful in detecting submarines. (Not that there are a whole lot of countries fielding large submarine fleets besides the US anymore.)
In terms of de-mining operations I think that
Re:The Pentagon has too much money dept (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Pentagon has too much money dept (Score:2, Funny)
We're over the rainbow on this one!
Right... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Interesting)
The moral of the story being, the guys who run these programs are not necessarily all that bright, nor do they have that much background in science and engineering. Sometimes they don't even seem able to tell the difference between Hollywood and real engineering. What they do have is millions and millions of dollars to throw at any fantasy you can pitch them. Not that this is really news, if you've paid attention to the development of Star Wars and it's slightly less impossible successor, National Missile Defense.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the military wants an R/C cockroach with audio/video feed, they probably can't have it. But I'll bet they get close enough to push the technological envelope, and get them maybe the smallest camera and microphone ever.
Because someone wants something that doesn't exist doesn't make them dumb. It might make them unrealistic.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't recall - but someone did a study recently about how creative thinking decreased markedly with every year of post secondary education or something like that. My nephew just turned 10. His dad isn't around so I try (poorly) to serve as some form of role model. I've noticed, with some melancholy, that he's less whimsical and prone to fancy as he learns more and becomes more task oriented. It suddenly dawned on me that the school system is designed to squash imagination and producer worker drones. But I digress.
It's no one's fault for thinking up outlandish things - engineers should just incorporate the free-thinking meme a bit more and make these guys obsolete. That way - you'll have smart money chasing high yield ideas.
A wasp can do it... (Score:2)
The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow.
Re:Right... (Score:2)
Re:Right... (Score:2)
Re:Right... (Score:2)
Re:Right... (Score:2)
The Point (Score:2)
However -- and this is by necessity a broad and perhaps unfair generalization -- I think the education there gears people to what I'd call the "best practices" approach to problem solving, and not necessarily a "novel solution" one. Whether that is a strength or a liability depends on the situation. But the people that I met are not what I would call hugely 'outside th
Bat Bombs! (Score:5, Informative)
Supposedly during one of the tests, someone got the bright idea to take a picture of the sleeping bats before carting them out to the test area (asleep and equipped with their little napalm canisters.) They all woke up with the flash. And, as they say, Hilarity Ensued.
We (humans) have never had good luck at this sort of thing. The Russians tried it with dogs carrying satchel charges; they trained the dogs by feeding them underneath tanks. Well, the only problem was that they used Russian tanks to train 'em, not German tanks...and apparently dogs are very good at distinguishing between Russian and German tanks.
And again, Hilarity Ensued.
Re:Bat Bombs! ... and pigeon-guided missiles (Score:2)
Don't forget the pigeon-guided missile [wikipedia.org], which was planned by B.F. Skinner during WWII. Wikipedia actually has a nice article on the use of military animals [wikipedia.org] throughout history. The description of Project Pigeon from wikipedia:
During World War II, Project Pigeon (or Project Orcon, for "organic control") was American behaviourist B. F. Skinner's attempt to develop a pigeon
Re:The reason soviet dogs didn't work (Score:2)
Apparently, the Germans got wind of it before this was put into practice and Panzer crews killed anything that looked like a dog on contact. There was also the problem that the Germans used gasoline for their tanks and the Soviets used disel which produces slightly different smells so the dogs weren't that effective on own because they were trained on soviet tanks.
This is a good plan? (Score:4, Funny)
I mean, when does cyborg insects become a good plan for a means of communication? They've already developed a defense for that: A can of Raid.
Re:This is a good plan? (Score:4, Funny)
What I don't understand is why this would be in the international wire reports. What happened to secrecy. If they let the entire world know that these things are being developed, the targets (e.g., Iraqi insurgents) will outfit themselves with cans of insect repellent or maybe just spray paint or hair spray, anything that will disrupt or kill the insects. A group of insurgents sitting around in a room are going to notice a butterfly; it's fairly slow moving and obvious.
Now, what would be really cool is if they developed some sort of super killer bees that have a really deadly neural toxin instead of the usual venom. One of those babies pricks you and you're dead within seconds. The bees would act like normal insects until the operator sends it a certain signal which activates some neurological pathway to sting anything that moves. This pathway would of course be based on studying the killer bees from S. America. Then release a few million of them, wait until they're near some baddies, and zap!
Of course, if these things could breed, the entire world would be in trouble. But that's never stopped those guys before!
Re:This is a good plan? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes the best weapon is the weapon that the bad guys *think* you have. If people start to believe they can be killed at any time or any place it can tend to make people want to give the bad guy game up.
The same principle is true, tell them there are 10 000 wacky ways that we can come and get them. They might not believe any of them, but you can bet they'll look twice next time a bug flies in th
Re:This is a good plan? (Score:2)
Re:This is a good plan? (Score:2)
Sure, but can it really be done? (Score:1, Informative)
Westblogs [westblogs.com]
Re:Sure, but can it really be done? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sure, but can it really be done? (Score:1)
Re:Sure, but can it really be done? (Score:2)
Re:Sure, but can it really be done? (Score:3, Interesting)
The equipment on both of those looks off-the-shelf and testing-mode rather than optimised for size. Granted, those are big roaches, but you can betcha that 5 years on things have got a lot smaller; and if it goes towards use, then it'll be better funded and use smaller components.
Animals in combat (Score:5, Interesting)
Dolphins trained to tear off diving gear of Vietcong divers and drag them to interrogation. Later, syringes placed on dolphin flippers to inject carbon dioxide into divers, who explode. About 40 divers thought to have been killed
Sounds like an idea that could be incorporated into Grand Theft Auto's next version.
Yeah... That's Brilliant (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Animals in combat (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder what's the BBC's source for those stories. I've heard the story about tearing off the diving gear before, but it's generally regarded as an urban legend -- after all, it would be pretty difficult to keep the hypothetical killer dolphins from attacking divers on your side.
Al
bad pun deflectors ON (Score:2, Funny)
Re:bad pun deflectors ON (Score:2, Funny)
Right up there with "Military Intelligence" (Score:2)
Audio & Video? (Score:2, Interesting)
The "insect-cyborg" must also "be able to transmit data from relevant sensors, yielding information about the local environment. These sensors can include gas sensors, microphones, video, etc." (emphasis added)
Right. I'm off to flyscreen my entire yard. And stock up on Mortein. Given the current trends (at least in the U.S), carrying insect repellant could soon be considered a suspicious act...
wait a minute.... (Score:3, Informative)
No joke there was an episode about something like that. Really weird, only I think it involved the tabacco industry....
Re:wait a minute.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:wait a minute.... (Score:2)
http://xfiles.amaroq.com/3.12/review.html
Re:wait a minute.... (Score:2)
Re:wait a minute.... (Score:2)
Insects would be ideal allies. (Score:1)
Enough of them could drug entire populations with psychotropic meds at election time. It boggles my mind.
Re:Insects would be ideal allies. (Score:4, Funny)
Well, that would help explain the the past two presidential elections.
Skeeter squad (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't Use Insects!! (Score:2)
Small scale failing (Score:1)
So insects were the natural choice!
too....many...jokes.... (Score:1)
I wish i could be a fly on your wall [authorsden.com]
to voice of General Disarray : X-Files did it!! [redwolf.com.au]
And i for one welcome our old news disguised as new [bbc.co.uk]
Re:too....many...jokes.... (Score:2)
I wish i could be the fly on your jeans
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds buggy to me (Score:2, Funny)
Pentagon watching too much sci fi. (Score:1)
Now, is it just me, or does it seem that the military is taking this whole "surveillance" thing just a bit too far. Implanting bugs with microchips, cameras, microphones... I mean come on. Just put the damn things on a little R.C. helicopter and use that.
Just a money sink... (Score:2, Funny)
This week in 'America on the march!' (Score:4, Funny)
*A title appears: 'America on the March!'"
*The music tones down as a narrator speaks, as if from a tin can and the screen fades from black to black and white shots of marching soldiers seen from the knees down*
"America's army is on the march! Fighting a seemingly unwinable, eternal war against The Terrorist!"
*Scene shifts to a variety of different described settings, faded with the image of a stereotypical terrorist constant throught.*
"But our enemies could lurk anywhere! In your homes, your gardens, your playgrounds, buisness and even your schools! You may never know your neighbor is a terrorist until... Bam!"
*His words are accompanied by a cheese cartoon explosion and the letters 'BAM', scene opens to a nuclear family clutching each other in exgaggerated fear and surprise*
"But never fear! Our great leader, President Bush is at the helm!"
*Scene flips to shots of street riots and total chaos. An obvious mistake as the film interrupts with the message 'scene missing'*
*The narrator, obviously recorded before the film had even began to be assembled, carries on.
"And with him, some of the greatest scientific minds of our time are gathered, providing ever improving technologies to combat our invisible enemies. Here at the Pentagon, every day yeilds exciting new discoveries in the world of chemistics, internets, domestic spying, robotics, and cybornetics!"
*The film hastly flips to shots of each of these things, trying to get back on track.*
*Finally, the film settles back to normal speed and begins to move through the same shots as before the terrorised family was shown;now the dim outline of a superman-shaped soldier is present.*
"Now we have the ability to make soldiers that can be found everywhere The Terrorists can be! Gardens, playgrounds, and schools! No, we're not talking about you, Timmy."
*Stock footage is shown of a clearly disappointed 12 year old...who is looking down at his ice cream which has fallen from his cone to the sidewalk.*
"Tomorrows soldier is in countless supply! The army ant! Thanks to modern cybernetics, mother nature her self is mobilizing against the unyeilding threat posed by global terrorism! The Ants are coming, and they are on America's side; there's no other side to be on! So remember those immortal words, as America is on the March:"
*The Music begins to wrap up as the scene moves to a black and white photo of president Bush infront of an American flag.*
*The Narration yeilds to an echoy snipit of the Presidents speech.*
"If you do not stand by us, then your are with the Terrorists..."
*Scene fades to an image of the spinning earth placed on the back drop of an overhead view of the skull-like Stealth Fighter.*
*Music returns to full volume as it concludes.*
*The lights flick out as the music ends...*
Re:This week in 'America on the march!' (Score:2)
Wow! (Score:3)
I think the cat story is more interesting (Score:2)
Then look at that smug feline in the photo next to the article. =)
Come on guys... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Paul Bunyan (Score:3, Funny)
SO, Paul and the guys were logging in the Wisconsin area, when all of a sudden, the entire horizon fills with dark, ominous clouds. Well, not to be pushed around by some rain or maybe a little hail, the guys keep on working. But as the cloud comes closer, they start hearing these strange buzzing sounds. Finally, they realize that it is indeed not a storm, but a huge cloud of Giant Mosquitoes!
Well, the guys haul but into the tin huts, but the giant mosquitoes start punching holes in the roof with their stingers! Paul, always being a quick thinker, grabs a hammer and starts pounding on the mosquito stingers, and they get flattened to the roof. Now, some of the mosquitoes couldn't get in or out, and the rest called it quits.
Now, Paul knew that the mosquitoes would probably be back, so he sent young Tom down the river to St. Louis to bring back some of them Guard Bees he had heard about. Tom gets back a couple of weeks later, and the bees proceed to fly patrol around the camp.
That was all fine great and dandy, until the Mosquitoes actually came back. See, the mosquitoes and the bees liked each other so much, they flew off and got married. Sure enough, their bee-squitoe kids came back a couple of weeks later with stingers on BOTH ends!
In the end, their craving for sweets caused them to swarm a fleet of ships which were bringing molasses to Paul's lumbercamp. They ate so much molasses that they could no longer fly and soon they were all drowned. Paul saved two of the mosquitoes which he later used for drilling holes in maple trees.
The Swarm? (Score:2)
Could you pick a site that hates Darpa MORE? (Score:2)
Sadly, the ban on animal-human hybrids ... (Score:2)
But WAIT! Nobody ever said anything about arachnid-human hybrids!
I'll bet that deep in the underground bunkers beneath the White House, thousands of abducted homeless are being subjected to radioactive spiders' bites.
But it certainly seems that the ManBat is outa the running
Low-calorie content (Score:2, Informative)
Articles about science (-fiction?) need to be covered by journalists that understand the meaning of various words. Take, for example, the following quote from TFA:
"Darpa believes scientists can take advantage of the evolution of insects, such as dragonflies and moths, in the pupa stage."
Methinks the author has conflated evolution with development.
At last we'll find out.... (Score:2)
Days later... (Score:2, Flamebait)
"Disaster strikes at Los Alamos when cybernetically enhanced insects designed for tactical germ warfare escape captivity; hundreds reported dead and critically injured."
Before I go on, I'd just like to say that DARPA has some really sick, sadistic fucks in its ranks. I don't care just how many of their inventions have made the trek from tactical to practical. Nothing DARPA has ever made was made without the idea of killing someone in mind, and these cyberslave insects are no excep
Re:Days later... (Score:2)
From the article's sidebar... (Score:2)
Although it would be one way to appropriately confuse the cat.
This could actually lead to some useful research (Score:2, Interesting)
Cyborg-animals, OK, human-animals, not ok. (Score:2)
Not quite (Score:2)
The taxpayers are not a part of this equation, and the DoD is so paranoid, there's not a lot of convincing that's necessary.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the money quote:
The civilian populace will likely accept an implanted microscopic chips that allow military members to defend vital national interests.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We've already had voting drones (Score:2)
Besides, everyone knows the clone had the advantage over the android in 2000, because the android didn't have the proprietary Republican interface to the voting machines and Supreme Court reboot.