U.S Military breeding Insect Army
Saturday, December 16, 2006

U.S Military is breeding insect army.

The pentagon defense scientists plan to implant microsystem into insect in the pupae stage. The scientist hopes to remotely control the insects.

Is insect the deployment vehicle? Is this going anywhere? Well, for me, it is pretty scary.

According to New Scientist Blog, the US military is looking for some creepy crawly recruits. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced last week that it is seeking "innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect cyborgs".

The goal is to create an insect that can be programmed or remotely directed to fly towards a target 100 metres away. DARPA thinks it may be feasible to create such tiny obedient cyborgs by injecting miniaturised electronic components into insects at the pupae stage.

But ongoing efforts to develop insect-inspired robots or to train real insects to perfom tasks at DARPA have apparently run into snags. "These activities have highlighted key challenges involving behavioural and chemical control of insects," the agency says.

This unusual recruitment drive follows news that DARPA is also working on remotely controlled sharks.