BBC News: A&M engineers creating ‘cyborg’ bugs to enter disaster areas

Video and featured image: BBC

While most people see roaches as filthy insects, a research team at Texas A&M led by Dr. Hong Liang, has proven that these roaches, when outfitted with small sensors, can have their movements controlled.

“The future technology is at work today,” said Liang.

Unlike previous technology that manipulated the roach’s movement through stimulating antennae, this study inserts electrodes directly into the roach’s nervous system. In the study the overall success rate of initiating and maintaining a turn averaged around 60 percent.

Carlos Sanchez, a doctoral student in the Texas A&M University’s mechanical engineering department was interviewed by BBC Click‘s Jen Copestake about the results of a 10-year research project, and the question of whether cyborg cockroaches can help in nuclear disasters was raised.

View at the BBC and the Look College of Engineering