Question of the day | WHY!?
Scientists develop remote control system for cockroaches
Sure it might be fun to scare your friends with a remote controlled roach but first you have to catch one and attach this back back to it.
Gross.
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from gizmag.com
The project is being led by Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical engineering. His team has fitted Madagascar hissing cockroaches with “backpacks” containing an inexpensive, lightweight, commercially-available chip, along with a wireless receiver and transmitter, and a microcontroller.
That microcontroller is wired into the cockroach’s antennae and cerci. Located in the abdomen, the cerci are sensory organs that detect air movement in order to warn of possible approaching predators. When the cerci are instead stimulated by the microcontroller, the result is the same as it would normally be – the cockroach thinks that something is coming at it from behind, and scuttles forward.
Source: North Carolina State University
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