Welcome To The Future – Remote-Controlled Beetles

What’s the insect-equivalent of PETA? Some hippies somewhere are going to be seriously pissed about this:

Via New Scientist:

It’s tempting to call them lords of the flies. For the first time, researchers have controlled the movements of free-flying insects from afar, as if they were tiny remote-controlled aircraft.

By connecting electrodes and radio antennas to the nervous systems of beetles, the researchers were able to make them take off, dive and turn on command. The cyborg insects were created at the University of California, Berkeley, by engineers led by Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz as part of a programme funded by the Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Double fucking awesome is the Metal Gear-referenced DARPA being involved. Someone call up Nietzsche, it appears we have finally killed God. Next time I see a beetle I’m going to have to stomp it, fearful it’s being controlled by foes to asphyxiate me in my sleep.