Drones are disconcerting and, sadly, are here to stay. Our tax dollars were used to create drones. WE financed these just like we finance all new weapons.
More frightening are drone insects, both real and robotic.
Our tax dollars are at work funding this private/public partnership as well. In time, these laboratory bugs will be marketed to police and the military by private companies who will enjoy the profits. I wonder if they ever have to return our tax investments, or do they just get to use the products created by tax dollars and tuition payments for these products cooked up in university labs. I deviate.
Cyborg & Robotic insects are close to becoming a new item for distribution, or so it seems.
Let's look at DARPA Cyborg and Robotic Insect snippets
In the interest of time, the following is a snapshot of a Google Search for - "cyborg insect" university
Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech professor Robert Michelson says he’s managed to get the bug ‘borgs to live into adulthood.
University of Michigan -
Scientists are hoping to use "energy scavenging" so cyborg insects can be helpful in dangerous situations:
The principal idea is to harvest the insect's biological energy from either its body heat or movements. The device converts the kinetic energy from wing movements of the insect into electricity, thus prolonging the battery life. The battery can be used to power small sensors implanted on the insect (such as a small camera, a microphone or a gas sensor) in order to gather vital information from hazardous environments.
Insect cyborgs may become first responders, search and monitor hazardous environs
Case Western Reserve University
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University inserted a wire into a cockroach to conduct these electrons and harvest the electricity.
Other Universities using DARPA money (our tax dollars) to produce what will become a product produced by private company(s):
Cornell
Penn State
Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile received an $8.4 million DARPA grant for work on "Insect Cyborg Sentinels
MIT
The New Scientist reports that as part of a program by DARPA, the military research group, scientists from MIT have found a way to control the movements of “cyborg” moths.
Harvard
After almost a decade of research, Wood and his colleagues at the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory are now creating small insect-like robots that will eventually be outfitted "with onboard sensors, flight controls, and batteries ... to nimbly flit around obstacles and into places beyond human reach". Like cyborg insect researchers, Wood is DARPA-funded. Last year, in fact, the agency selected him as one of 24 "rising stars" for a "young faculty awards" grant.
Funny, you never hear about nixing funding for stuff like this.
Air Force Research Laboratory's munitions directorate
Robo-bugs
Cyborg insects are only the latest additions to the US military's menagerie.
But whatever other creatures they favor, insects never seem far from the Pentagon's dreams of the future.
In fact, Shachtman reported earlier this year that "Air force scientists are looking for robotic bombs that look - and act - like swarms of bugs and birds". He went on to quote Colonel Kirk Kloeppel, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory's munitions directorate, who announced the lab's interest in "bio-inspired munitions", in "small, autonomous" machines that would "provide close-in [surveillance] information, in addition to killing intended targets".
Nuclear-Powered Transponder for Cyborg Insect
Engineers develop radioisotope MEMS power source for insect spy program
I'm not quite sure how we prepare our young people for life amidst cyborg and/or robotic insects.
Maybe our DARPA $$ and universities can replace honey bees?
Or maybe next generations can BE cyborg and able to run faster than the cyborg bugs?
DARPA Commissions a Super-Fast Running Robot Cheetah
WestWorld or bust
FOR SOME MORE "Our Tax Dollars at Work" FUN, GOOGLE SEARCH - DARPA FUNDS NANO
Hit #1
DARPA Funds Nano-UAV Hummingbird
DARPA funds batteries smaller than salt grains
DARPA funds partnership between Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics and University of Washington for triple boost to miniaturization efforts
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants a new type of computer logic.
The defense agency has doled out US $8.4 million for a four-year ”spintronics” project led by the University of California, Los Angeles, and $9.9 million for ”nanomagnet” research led by the University of Notre Dame. Both groups aim to build a basic magnetic logic circuit.
DARPA to Offer $30 Million to Jump-Start Cellular Factories
But for a new DARPA program, it represents modifying the metabolic and genetic machinery of cells to produce useful products.
"We want to create a new manufacturing capability for the United States," says DARPA Program Manager Alicia Jackson. Approved barely a month ago, the $30 millionLiving Foundries program should be sending out a request for proposals in the next few weeks and making awards several months from now.
With its investment, over the next 3 years DARPA will support academic and corporate researchers for developing and applying an engineering framework to biology for biomanufacturing. The goal is to "break open the field to new players so [they] will not have to be experienced in genetics to design new biological systems," Jackson said yesterday at a DARPA "Industry Day" meeting in Arlington, Virginia.
Military Plans Cyborg Sharks