U.S. military create live remote-controlled beetles to bug conversations

Mail Online
October 19, 2009

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Spies may soon be bugging conversations using actual insects, thanks to research funded by the US military.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent years developing a whole host of cyborg critters, in the hopes of creating the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’.

Now a team of researchers led by Hirotaka Sato have created cyborg beetles which are guided wirelessly via a laptop.

Using implants, they worked out how to control a beetle’s take-off, flight and landing by stimulating the brain to work the wings.

They controlled turns through stimulating the basilar muscles on one side or the other to make the wings on that side flap harder.

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