Researchers Remotely Control Cockroaches With Electronic Backpack

[DugMachine]

Why are so many people sorry for the roach? Roaches don't have emotions... Maybe i'm just biased cause I have a huge phobia of roaches and would love it if they all died and went away forever.

Seriously though, we can't pick a more pleasant bug to do this? Nice beetle perhaps? If i'm trapped under the rubble of a torn down building and they send a search party of robotic roaches after me i'm squishing all the fuckers so guess i'll never be found.

 

[DugMachine]

if it wasn't cockroaches. Seriously, they're cockroaches, only slightly less loved than rats and more loved that black widows.

I'd rather be in a room with a thousand black widows and rats than in a room with one roach :S

 

[Saviordd1]

if it wasn't cockroaches. Seriously, they're cockroaches, only slightly less loved than rats and more loved that black widows.

I'd rather be in a room with a thousand black widows and rats than in a room with one roach :S

Why?

Black Widows can kill you.

And plus one roach is ten times more clean than either a spider or rat.

 

[DugMachine]

if it wasn't cockroaches. Seriously, they're cockroaches, only slightly less loved than rats and more loved that black widows.

I'd rather be in a room with a thousand black widows and rats than in a room with one roach :S

Why?

Black Widows can kill you.

And plus one roach is ten times more clean than either a spider or rat.

How lethal something is rarely crosses me mind, at least when it comes to spiders. I spent a few years living with my grandmother and she had a serious black widow problem. I would have maybe 3 or 4 in my room at any given night. So I just sorta learned to live with em. Plus I'm not a huge bug person but i'm quite fond of spiders, they're really interesting.

Roaches though... No clue why i'm so afraid of them. Always have, always will. If I even see one my body goes into over drive and I just go apeshit on the thing until it's smashed dead. Almost punched a hole in the wall once trying to destroy this roach that had the balls to come into my room !

 

[mattaui]

Considering every roach I ever see ends up squashed flat if I can get to it, this seems like a constructive use to put them to. Network a few hundred of them together and then you're really talking.

Please, don't worry about the cockroaches. They were here long before we arrived and will be here long after we're gone.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

"Electronic reins", my first thought was, "whoa Nelly."

Also, got to add, cockroach didn't ask for this.

But maintaining them, no problem probably, steer them back, put them in a container with food. They aren't fussy eaters.

I support roach cyborgs. Can't wait for the military applications.

 

[Space Jawa]

Creating these "biobotic cockroaches" was a cost-effective alternative to "small-scale robots," which would have been too difficult to produce quickly and efficiently.

And they're probably far more durable than any small-scale robot they could possibly create.

But do they have difficulty steering the RoboRoaches into well-lit areas?

 

[FoolKiller]

Hmmm. I don't want to take away from this experiment's findings, but perhaps if the roaches could also be monitored somehow for their general health... I know this is going to sound pathetic, but the thought of running them to death so we can know stuff kinda makes me sad.

I felt the same way. It's one thing to eat animals and such, but to enslave them for this seems wrong even if it is fiscally logical.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

This is so many flavours of morally wrong that I cannot even begin to comprehend how is that okay to do.

Definitely. I'm getting shades of Grimdark'd Ratatouille, with the crafty and lovable rat replaced by humans needing to probe the deepest, darkest corners of little slices of Hell.

So long as it doesn't happen to-

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD.

 

[BiasedVeracity]

Why are so many people sorry for the roach? Roaches don't have emotions...

Actually, they're using their fear response to predators to maneuver them. So not only do they have emotions, but they're being exploited for them. If we did this enough to mammals, they'd become extremely neurotic as a result.

 

[viranimus]

FINALLY!!!!!!

I cannot even tell you how long I have been dying to have an army of roaches that I will control to raid other peoples homes in order to seek and retrieve.....other roaches! Oh glorious day,

Praise be to science!

 

[Easton Dark]

This is going to lead some mad super villain into using small backpacks to control spiders and wasps.

This is our doom.

Do the cockroaches at least get cool cyborg sunglasses that come out of their face?

 

[DugMachine]

Why are so many people sorry for the roach? Roaches don't have emotions...

Actually, they're using their fear response to predators to maneuver them. So not only do they have emotions, but they're being exploited for them. If we did this enough to mammals, they'd become extremely neurotic as a result.

Hmm well sorry but my deep rooted phobia will never let me have sympathy for roaches

 

[briankoontz]

Damn. I'm not sure if this is something thats pretty awesome, or pretty scary.

And I'd love to see what people have to say about the morality behind using biobotics in a way like this. Is this unethical to be doing such experiments? Pretty amazing none the less. I certainly hope these get applied in a practical way though

Of course it's unethical. It removes the free will of the cockroach. We may not like them but they are living creatures and this is constant torture of a living being.

Human domination of the planet infringes upon non-human animals all the time, but rarely in such a direct, malicious, and torturous manner.

If it turns out aliens exist, it's not difficult to imagine a powerful race of beings considering humans as "pests" and "finding a use for them" by strapping a torture device to our backs and controlling us remotely. "This is a great use for humans, who seem to serve no other purpose than generally being gross" might even be blithely posted by one of them on their version of the internet.

Damn those cockroaches and their lack of useful purpose to human beings! Now finally they may take the grand step of being constantly tortured in the name of service to humanity!

 

[BiasedVeracity]

Human domination of the planet infringes upon non-human animals all the time, but rarely in such a direct, malicious, and torturous manner.

If it turns out aliens exist, it's not difficult to imagine a powerful race of beings considering humans as "pests" and "finding a use for them" by strapping a torture device to our backs and controlling us remotely. "This is a great use for humans, who seem to serve no other purpose than generally being gross" might even be blithely posted by one of them on their version of the internet.

Damn those cockroaches and their lack of useful purpose to human beings! Now finally they may take the grand step of being constantly tortured in the name of service to humanity!

Exactly. If humans never had been mechanically induced to have the feeling of being chased around by a predator all the time, then they'd serve no other purpose than simply being gross. At least, that's what an alien would think! Are we really as cruel as the cruelest aliens that come from our imaginations?

 

[Saulkar]

I find their lack of compassion disturbing. Additionally I am not afraid of what other people think of me when I say that there will be other people who would want to use this on bigger animals.

 

[ShAmMz0r]

Of course it's unethical. It removes the free will of the cockroach. We may not like them but they are living creatures and this is constant torture of a living being.

You do understand that cockroaches don't have any intelligence and thus could not in any way posses will, right? They are, basically, little biological automata operating on a set of instructions preprogrammed in them by evolution. And you really gotta love people clamouring to defend rights of the cockroaches when most of them would kill one on sight. Hypocrisy abounds.

 

[Saulkar]

Are we really as cruel as the cruelest aliens that come from our imaginations?

I cannot see why not given that such traits are usually that of the most successful animals. That or complete apathy, the lion does not feel any remorse or sadism when it hunts and kills. The same is completely inverse for dolphins and primates, those savage, lovable fuckers.

 

[cookyt]

Every time there's a science thread, there's always some cry of "why are they doing X when they could be curing cancer?!" As if there was only one scientist in the world who REALLY wanted to do all this cool stuff, but everybody wants him to cure cancer instead. Granted, at least half of these statements are probably jokes, but that makes me worry for the other half.

Anyway, remote-controlled roaches: pretty cool idea. I wonder what the range on those transceivers is. If we can produce the circuitry cheaply enough, the possibilities are endless. I can see the military taking this up, of course, but what about using them to explore small areas that would otherwise be unreachable. Take a stroll around the finer parts of the NYC sewer system, or maybe use them to explore deeper into caves where the crevices are too small for a person to fit. Maybe we can attach a camera to one as well. I've always wondered what Chernobyl looks like from the inside.

 

[yuval152]

Every cockroach that walk near me is dead anyways, so I don't care. I wish could put an jetpack to my dog, will make walking with him way more fun.