Mind control a cockroach with your iPhone

the8thark · Oct 12, 2013

Mind control a cockroach with your iPhone

The US government is officially against the idea.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/cyborg-cockroaches-start-ethics-debate-2013-10

Quote

You no longer have to be a graduate student or doctor to study neuroscience.
According to an article in Science Now, a new do-it-yourself project, called the RoboRoach, allows kids as young as 10 to create their own cyborg cockroach and control its movement. The $US99 kits come with live cockroaches, a surgical kit, and tiny electronic hardware pieces.
The goal behind these RoboRoach kits is to get kids interested in neuroscience research and encourage them to pursue a career in the field. Cockroaches and humans have neurons that function in a similar way, so when you observe the cockroach responding to the signal from your phone, you are also seeing how human neurons respond to a signal. But some scientists and bioethicists are concerned this new product is unethical and may be encouraging cruel treatment of animals.
The RoboRoach made its debut at the TEDx conference in Detroit on Oct. 2. Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo, the co-founders of Backyard Brains, a small startup company of scientists and engineers, created the tiny backpack the cockroach wears and designed the kit that allows the user to attach all the pieces themselves. They funded the project with a Kickstarter, but and the cyborg cockroach will be commercially available starting in November.
How the cyborg cockroaches are created

Swiping the screen of a smartphone controls the RoboRoachs movement.
The cockroaches are placed in ice water as a kind of crude anesthetic. Then the kids are instructed to sand down a patch of shell on the cockroachs head and superglue electrodes to the newly smooth area. Next, a groundwire is stuck into the cockroachs thorax the area right between its neck and stomach. Finally, the kids must carefully trim the antennae and stick small silver electrodes in them that will receive the signal from the circuit that attaches to the cockroachs back and resembles a tiny backpack.
Swiping the screen of a smartphone controls the RoboRoachs movement.
Amateur neuroscientists can steer the cockroach left and right after the surgery. Their movements are controlled by electrodes in their antennae, and they respond to directions from a wireless signal sent from a smartphone. The tiny backpack the cockroach wears communicates directly with its neurons by sending small electrical pulses.
After a few minutes, the cockroach will adapt to its cyborg fixture and will stop responding to the signals.
An ethical dilemma
Gage told Science Now that the insects feel little pain during the surgery. The kit explains how to take care of any wounds the cockroach might get during the attachment, and after the kids are done experimenting, the backpack can be removed and the cockroach can retire and still do regular cockroach things like eat and mate.

However, other scientists see these kits as a serious violation of basic ethics.
Jonathan Balcombe from the Humane Society University in Washington, D.C. told Science Now that if it was discovered that a teacher was having students use magnifying glasses to burn ants and then look at their tissue, how would people react?
Bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick compared the cyborg cockroaches to the Imperius Curse from the Harry Potter novels. He told Science Now that he isnt calling for an outright ban of the product, but still finds it unpleasant.
Normally, cockroaches use their antennae as feelers to navigate around any object that might be blocking their path. But when their antennae are trimmed and electrodes are stuck in, they lose that natural sensing ability and it is replaced with an electric impulse sent from a phone. There is little explanation on the Kickstarter page of any lasting effects this surgery has on the cockroaches.
Animal experimentation is fairly common and can be useful, especially in neuroscience where it is crucial to study a live brain to observe and understand the signaling that goes on between neurons and the rest of the body. Understanding the brain and the way neuron signaling works is the only way that treatments and cures for neurological diseases, like Parkinsons disease, will be discovered.
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Diseal3 · Oct 12, 2013

Once they find out they can survive a nuclear war they will return the favor...

AlvinNguyen · Oct 12, 2013

I don't like bugs and insects but this is pretty cruel to me. Maybe I'm not the majority but I don't think surgically fixing an object onto another being and controlling it can be classified as ethical - especially when it's being sold to anyone and not really using as research.

Jimbo47 · Oct 12, 2013

I kill these things. No way I want to even touch it to perform this "surgery"

cyks · Oct 12, 2013

AlvinNguyen said: ↑

I don't like bugs and insects but this is pretty cruel to me. Maybe I'm not the majority but I don't think surgically fixing an object onto another being and controlling it can be classified as ethical - especially when it's being sold to anyone and not really using as research.
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The frogs I decected in school could hardly be considered research, but were extremely valuable in teaching. Anyone willing to go through all of the steps to control a roach would likely gain the same (or more) knowledge.

If you simply had to point your phone at it and gained full control, it'd be a completely different thing, but, with all of the steps involved, I would assume that most who do this are interested in the science behind it.

LostSoul80 · Oct 13, 2013

That's gross, curious to see if it'll take off some day.

bhags8 · Oct 13, 2013

That's disgusting. I hate bugs but I can't even imagine what a ten year old would be doing with a controlled roach.

firedept · Oct 13, 2013

Cool, can I use this on my apprentices at work? LOL!

Would not want a problem of roaches in my home if they got loose. Sure are hard to get rid of.

magilla · Jun 13, 2014

AlvinNguyen said: ↑

I don't like bugs and insects but this is pretty cruel to me. Maybe I'm not the majority but I don't think surgically fixing an object onto another being and controlling it can be classified as ethical - especially when it's being sold to anyone and not really using as research.
Click to expand...

"Wired" brains in the ape family (chimps, macaques, lemurs) have been used well ...for YEARS ...think back to the late 50s & early 60s & America & Russia's space programs. "Ham" was but one of the more well-known examples of this and there was quite a lengthy line of predecessors to him. In many cases, it's still de rigueur for bio-medical/pharmacological research before human trials. Sad truth but it's there.

Besides, doesn't this whole story sound just a bit Wikipedia-ish to you?

The Doctor11 · Jun 13, 2014

Who want to do surgery? It helps if you zoom in really close to the picture. Yeah ill pass

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