Japanese engineers create cockroach cyborgs

Corrosioneering Newletter InterCorr International: At Tokyo University, a bio-robot research team has created remote-control cyborg cockroaches. Each cockroach has its wings and antennae removed, and is equipped with a microprocessor and pulse-emitting electrodes.

"'Insects can do many things that people can't, ' [Isao] Shimoyama,the head of the bio-robot research team at Tokyo University [explains]. 'The potential applications of this work for mankind could be immense.' Within a few years, Shimoyama says, electronically controlled insects carrying mini-cameras or other sensory devices could be used for a variety of sensitive missions - like crawling through earthquake rubble to search for victims, or slipping under doors on espionage surveillance."

These creepy cyborgs remind me of Garnet Hertz's Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot, which I blogged about a long time ago.