Insects are simple creatures. Simple enough that you can essentially turn them into a remote-controlled toy with a few well-placed electrical impulses. People have been able to control insects like cockroaches and ants for a while, but commandeering flying insects is tougher. Those little wings are just a bit more complex.
Well, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have come up with a little backpack which, when attached to a beetle, gives you full control of their flight patterns. This is possible because the researchers discovered new tiny muscles below the wings that control the bug’s direction in mid-flight. By shooting varying electrical pulses into these muscles, you can make the beetle go up, down, left or right and control the angle at which it turns.
So, why have these scientists created remote-controlled cyborg beetles? Well, according to lead researcher Michel Maharbiz, there’s nothing shady going on…
“The story I’m interested in isn’t that I want to control an insect in free flight for some nefarious purpose. It’s really that this kind of technology is very useful as tools to figure out what’s going on in the insect.”
You heard the man, this absolutely doesn’t have anything to do with Michel wanting to fly a beetle into his sister’s hair. Definitely not.
via Wired