Scholarly Library on the Militia and the 2nd Ammendment

From: grainger <grai..._at_tscm.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 03:36:03 -0400

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Subject: Nanotechnology and spying - Part 2
From: reginal..._at_hotmail.com
To: TSCM-L Professionals List <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
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New Scientist article continued from Part 1.

Part 2 -

"It is easy to see if a rat in the lab has found the source of a
target scent, but in the field the team would need a way of getting
remote confirmation that their cyborg rat had accomplished its mission
and found a target. To achieve this, they first identified the neural
signals that rats generate when they come across a scent they are
trained to find. The researchers began to develop another brain
implant to pick up these neural signals and a transmitter attached to
the backpack to relay them to 'mission control' (New Scientist, 25
September 2004, p. 21).

Unfortunately, progress slowed in 2005 when the US Defense Advanced
Projects Research Agency (DARPA) stopped funding the research.
However, Hermer-Vasquez says the Israeli government has since asked
the team to apply for a patent in Israel so the government can license
the technology to use cyborg rats in search-and-rescue missions. The
patent is pending.

Chapin's team now plans to transfer its technology to birds, where it
could be useful for surveillance. The won't be the first, though.
Last year, a team led by Su Xuecheng at the Shandong University of
Science and Technology in Qingdao, reported implanting electrodes in
the brains of pigeons which allowed them to direct the birds up, down,
left or right via wireless signals from a laptop. In another, now-
defunct DARPA project, Jelle Atema of Boston University,
Massachusetts, showed he could control the direction of a small shark
- called a spiny dogfish - using a brain implant to stimulate either
its left or right olfactory centre. The shark turned to follow the
phantom odour (New Scientist, 1 March 2006, p 30).

One benefit of working with animals like rats, pigeons and sharks is
that they are big enough to carry off-the-shelf miniature video
cameras and computers - and the batteries to power them. But these
animals are too large to blend into the background, which is one
reason why DARPA's latest project focuses on insects. Insects' agility
in flight is unmatched. The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical
Systems project (HI-MEMS) aims to miniaturise all the technology
necessary so that it fits within the body of a flying insect.

During their development from larvae to adults, most winged insects,
including moths and beetles, undergo metamorphosis in a pupa stage,
during which enzymes dissolve much of the larval tissue and the insect
is rebuilt. The HI-MEMS project aims to merge artificial control
systems with those of the insect by inserting the devices during the
pupa stage. The idea is that as new organs and tissue develop, they
will create strong, stable connections between the devices and the
insects' neural or muscular tissues. The control devices become part
of the adult insect's body.

This is no mean feat. The implants must be small and light enough not
to interfere with the adult insect, and must reliably contact the
neurons that control flight. HI-MEMS researchers have fabricated ultra-
thin neural probes - a few hundred of micrometers across - out of
flexible plastic, with traces of metal completing the electrical
connections.

Details are hard to come by, as the DARPA-funded research teams have
been prohibited from speaking about their work. However, two of the
groups gave tantalising glimpses of their progress when they presented
some results at the IEEE MEMS 2008 conference in Tucson, Arizona, in
January.

In a series of video clips shown at the conference and posted online,
a tobacco hawkmoth with wires connected to its back lifts and lowers
one wing, then the other, then both, in response to signals delivered
to its flight muscles. As the researchers ramp up the frequency of the
muscle stimulation, the moth's wings beat faster, approaching take-off
speed. In another clip, the moth is flying, tethered from above, when
electrical impulses applied to muscles on one side or the other cause
the moth to yaw left or right.

The clips were filmed at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, New
York, where a team led by David Stern implanted the flexible plastic
probes into tabacco hawkmoth pupae seven days before the moths
emerged. They found that inserting them any earlier meant the tissue
was to fluid to seal around the probe, but any later and development
was too advanced and the probes damaged the moths' muscles. A probe
is embedded in each set of flight muscles on either side of the moth
and a connection protrudes from the moth's back. This can be hooked
up to the tether wires which also deliver control signals and power.
According to their paper, the team has also designed and built a
battery-powered onboard control system, though there was no mention of
whether they had made moths fly using this untethered arrangement.

........"

End of Part 2 - Continued in Part 3 to follow.

Reg Curtis


Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:17 CST