Near future
Contacts
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
May 24, 2022

Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine

Near future

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

Read in:  Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseRussianSpanish

Cyborg locusts can "smell" bombs and detect explosives

After the jellyfish, even cyborg locusts. A brain implant "reads" their mind as they sniff and detect explosives better than any device.

Gianluca Ricciodi Gianluca Riccio
in Technology
Share38Pin3Tweet10SendShare3ShareShare2
February 15 2020
⚪ Reads in 3 minutes
A A

U.S. Navy-funded research could replace dogs used by bomb squads.

Altolà, evil people who want to detonate something: you did the math without the cyborg locusts. A research team funded by the U.S. Navy has developed a class of cybernetic locusts capable of perceiving a wide range of substances, including explosive ones.

In the publication placed on BioRxiv, the researchers describe how insects have been used to detect gases released by substances such as ammonium nitrate, commonly used in the manufacture of military bombs and explosives, TNT and RDX.

Individual cyborg locusts have been able to successfully sniff incendiary material, but the results improved when scientists collected data from a mini swarm of seven or more locusts, where detection capability was distributed.

Maybe you are also interested

With the motion sensor the “cyborg” mussel acts as a pollution detector

The submarine of the future? It will swim like a robot squid

Human enhancement, the European (and the Italian) want to become cyborgs

I tell you about the cyborg locust that detects explosives

The research paper from the University of Washington in St. Louis describes the transformation of insects into explosives detectors by implanting electrodes in the brain. This allowed the researchers to analyze the neural activity of locusts when they encountered certain substances.

A shower of funds on this research

Four years ago the US Naval Research Bureau allocated $ 750.000 for the project, but until yesterday it was unclear whether the plan would work. The new paper suggests that the use of a cyborg locust in the field is close to becoming a reality.

Research is exploring the path of bio robots with great determination: just 15 days ago at Stanford they turned jellyfish into cyborgs.

The researchers chose to work with American locusts because they are "sturdy" and "can carry heavy payloads," the research reveals. The real challenge was finding a way to "read the minds" of the locusts without undergoing massive surgery. The procedure involves a "minor" incision on the heads of the insects which allows them to continue to move their mouths and antennae freely.

Cyborg Locusts, the next challenge: control their movements

To direct the swarms of cyborg locusts where they are needed, Washington University scientists explore two avenues. The first, put them in tiny "vehicles" (complete with wheels) to be moved at will. The second, definitive, is to apply a silk implant to the insects, a sort of 'nano tattoo' that allows them to be piloted at a distance.

training

Cyborg locusts have been exposed to five different explosives and some other chemicals. Within 500 milliseconds of exposure to each substance, an obvious and distinct pattern of activity appears in the brain of insects.

This speed can be attributed to the biology of locusts: their small antennas possess about 50.000 olfactory neurons. This makes them phenomenal in perceiving a wide range of substances, better than any artificial sensor that humans have ever made.

Since it would be difficult to process the data of so many neurons, the team focused on a "bottleneck" in the brain of the locusts, a compact region of around 800 neurons that processes information from the antennas. The signals showed what the bugs were detecting, allowing scientists to effectively intercept locust reactions.

Possible improvements

The signals can be picked up by the electrodes for approximately seven hours after placing the implants on the Cyborg locusts, then fade away. The researchers note, however, that this period can be extended by perfecting the surgical technique used for the implant.

Keeping these Cyborg locusts alive once implanted could present problems in real-world settings, but the pace advanced by scientists at Washington University is truly remarkable.

tags: biorobotcyborg
Previous post

Transparent human organs created: they will be the model for 3D printing

Next Post

Boring Company, Musk's company finishes the first tunnel in Las Vegas

COLLABORATE

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff
  • capacitor

    ETH technology: drinking water from the air 24 hours a day, without power supply

    9945 Shares
    Share 3977 Tweet 2486
  • Domus, crazy zero-emission trimaran

    12611 Shares
    Share 5042 Tweet 3151
  • Winds of war, China launches the Zhu Hai Yun, the world's first "bearer"

    4561 Shares
    Share 1824 Tweet 1140
  • Vaxinia, first patient receives oncolytic virus that kills cancer

    2335 Shares
    Share 933 Tweet 583
  • Pearlsuites, Lazzarini brings out the hotel rooms on the water

    1592 Shares
    Share 636 Tweet 398

archive

Have a look here:

innovations against covid-19 on public transport
Technology

5 technologies against Covid-19 on public transport (and not only)

The Transit Tech Lab identifies and tests new technologies around the world. Among the 8 selected this year, here are the ...

Read More

Tekrapod, here is the swimmers airbag

biological aging

Blood study reveals: biological aging occurs in three moments

The office of the future has everything but an office

July 14, French national holiday: the exoskeleton appears at the parade

Next Post

Boring Company, Musk's company finishes the first tunnel in Las Vegas

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Environment
Architecture
Artificial intelligence
Gadgets
concepts
Design

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Medicine
Spazio
Robotica
Work
Transportation
energia

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to redazione@futuroprossimo.it

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Subscribe to our newsletter

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to redazione@futuroprossimo.it

Categories

This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
© 2021 Futuroprossimo

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
This site uses cookies. By continuing to read it, you consent to their use.