this cockroach needs to get to Broadway
stats
it's hopping on the L transferring to
the nqr at Union Square and arriving at
its final destination
Times Square eventually your commute
becomes second nature you do it without
thinking and this cockroach is not
thinking either instead it's being
directed by a microchip in its backpack
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researchers at North Carolina State
University have found a way to bug a
cockroach by hacking its senses
researchers can remote-control a roach
to go wherever they want but why would
they do this
I'm a terrible squirt and I'm an
assistant professor in Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department at North
Carolina State University our idea is a
swarm of cyber roaches that carries
little microphones on their backpacks
and those backpacks has very sensitive
sensors and they're efficient radios
they form radio network and we help our
cyber roaches to decide in which
direction to go how does it work
cockroaches use their antennae to sense
and understand the environment around
them so when an antenna touches
something solid it sends an electrical
signal to their brain to turn in a
different direction Alper Bozkurt
harnesses this behavior by attaching his
own electrodes to the roaches antenna
under anesthesia these electrodes
stimulate the antenna to send electrical
signals to the brain and allow Boz Kurt
and his team to direct the roach where
to go these electrodes are connected to
the roaches backpack which acts like an
extension of the roaches brain it
consists of a battery a microchip with a
radio to communicate with a controller
and microphones to triangulate sound you
can actually try this at home by
purchasing a kit from backyard brains to
create your own cyber roach cockroach
not included hissing cockroaches are
available even in pet stores and they
are not pest insects they are exotic pet
insects from Madagascar
[Music]
this is a chamber where we keep our
cockroaches and observe their behavior
cockroaches are amazing and they were
able to survive millions of years of
harsh environmental conditions and they
are good crawlers and they're good
climbers so in this chamber we try to
understand what as cockroaches do during
their daily life and during their night
life so far this tech controls a single
roach but what about an intrusion of
cockroaches and what could you use this
intrusion for it was in 1999 I joined
the search and rescue efforts after the
earthquake in Turkey where about 20,000
people lost their lives one of the most
critical questions is where are the
living surviving victims you need to
find those people in a short amount of
time time is very critical and right now
there is no technology out there that
can provide this with the power of an
intrusion he can send his cyber roaches
as first responders into deadly
environments to locate and rescue
potential survivors
for example during a search and rescue
mission they would release an intrusion
of cyber roaches to naturally roam the
search area as the roaches explore the
space they gather data that is used to
create a 3d map of the environment if a
roach travels outside the search area
the computer will automatically
stimulate its antenna to direct it back
in once a roach detects the sounds of a
survivor beacons from fixed radio towers
would activate and locate the cyber
roach and thus the survivor
I love cockroaches some people may think
that they are very ugly but roaches may
also think that humans are ugly
we had very excited demonstrations in
the laboratory environment and we are
ready to bring this technology into
simulations of collapse buildings to
test it and find out what would be the
next level of challenges
these cyber roaches are just the first
step in cyborg insects DARPA is already
funding research into controlling the
flight of cyborg beetles and moths as
potential surveillance drones so watch
what you say because Sunday soon
Big Brother could be bugging your room
with an actual bug check out more
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