I’ve heard rumblings of this before, but to me it has always been somewhat fantastical—like the nanotech in Neal Stephenson novels, or the relationships in a Nora Ephron film. But maybe not:
The U.S. military wanted to investigate the potential of “insect reconnaissance,” so University of New Mexico chemical engineer C. Jeffrey Brinker answered the call.
The initial idea was to maintain honeybee colonies and analyze the nectar and pollen that foraging bees brought back to the hive, looking for traces of explosives, toxins or bioweapons.
Then Brinker and his colleagues pursued the notion of mounting tiny chips on the backs of honeybees and cockroaches. That was six or seven years ago, he said.
Sensors on the chips would flash bright green when the bugs encountered dangerous agents, Brinker said Wednesday in Denver at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society.
For various reasons, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the main research-and-development arm of the Defense Department, pulled the plug on Brinker’s bug funding in 2002.
But he has continued to pursue the idea of “microbe-based biosensors,” using individual living cells embedded in ultrathin, glasslike films. The microscopic cells – Brinker started with yeast cells and later tried various bacteria – are surrounded by fats to seal in water and provide nutrients.
[…]
Brinker and his colleagues genetically altered the cells so they fluoresce when they encounter traces of toxins, explosives, or pathogens such as anthrax.
A million of the living cells could be placed on a chip less than half an inch square. Cells on a single chip could detect a variety of hazardous substances, Brinker said. Reservoir water could be monitored for contaminants by coating countless beads with the cell-based sensors, then running water over the beads and checking them under a microscope for bright-green fluorescence.
Personally, I think if we’re going to mount anything on the backs of bees and cockroaches, it should be tiny, powerful lasers—which we could then use to destroy any subwoofer placed in the bed of a pickup or in the rear of a car and used to augment Jay-Z music—but I suppose I can see how Brinker might have other ideas.
To each his own, I guess.
Anyway, I thought this was the kind of thing the Israelis were already doing. Could it be the Defense Department pulled funding because the Israelis are farther along and have shared the technology?
Not for free, of course. I mean, they are Jews, after all. But you know what I mean.
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update: From a commenter at Ace’s, “Israel unveils portable hunter-killer robot”!
Of course, the HK’s are much easier to spot than terminators—so at least the Palestinian guerillas have that going for them.
Cockroaches are bad enough, but cockroaches with circular hats? We’re not ready.
You should see what they’re doing with heat seeking missles and armadillos. Sure the testing has fried a few of the prototy……
Uh….
Does the armadillo read the daily posts or does he just do fridays?
If lasers are going onto anything, it damn well better be frickin’ sharks, that’s all I’m sayin’.
The armadillo occasionally comments under the name “alphie”.
RC:
You insult the ‘dillo at your own peril.
That was a mortal dissing so I would lock your doors at night.
Laser beams on puppies, beacuse nobody would be prepared! Plus the piss stains accelerate the fire damage.
That’s an insult to armadillos everywhere.
No doubt forcing the DOD to pay them off in diamonds. Because, you know, the Joooos are just obsessed with diamonds.
Well that and those light, crispy potato knishes from the Koch Deli in West Philly…
No, no! The Israelis were experimenting with wasps.
WASPS?
Oh, the humanity!
Hmmm.
Lasers?
How about tiny little bombvests instead? That way the bombs are triggered when the bee tries to use it’s stinger reflex.
And the best part?
The MSM will love the idea no matter who ends up dying. Collateral damage? Pshaw!
Those lefty journalist types just adore living things that blow up. Genetically engineer the little bastards to display the Palestinian colors and we could use them to empty out a orphanage and the NYT would applaud.
Even the one I saw “sleeping” on the side of the road in Louisiana about three years ago?
Pollen raiders! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
ed,
I think they call them “yellowjackets” for a reason, but mums the word, okay?
Jewbee Jewbee Jew…bee Jewbee Jewbee.
– Gen. Frank “Moshe” Sinatra
Why stop with high-power lasers on the backs of bees and cockroaches?
If we’re going to make the technology investment, then let’s get something American for our money. Something OUTSIZED! Something INSANELY LETHAL! Something with PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY!
In other words, let’s outfit M1A2s with high-powered frickin laser beams, and adapt them so the internal tank atmosphere is saltwater rather then air. Then let’s train up hyper-intelligent killer sharks (Tigers or Great Whites, whatever – Samuel L. Jackson would know which would be best) and turn those puppies loose.
Oh, and stand back. A long way back.
Speaking of Jews, didn’t Gene Simmons have these way back in the eighties?
I’m thinking M202 FLASH on the back of a rotweiler.
I read in the paper the other day that all the bees are disappearing. I forget why. Now it turns out they’re all being equipped with minicams at some undisclosed location …..
Of course, the administration is in complete denial mode. They keep saying, “There is no Plan Bee.”
“Insect Reconnaissance” – Music by Handel.
Superfly
I saw something fairly similar to the VIPeR awhile back on “Future Weapons.” I don’t remember if it was the Israeli version or not, though.
I paid my Joos years ago.
We need to dumb some of them Charleton Heston Ants on their heathen ass…
THEM? I post this and my TW is THEM?
…which we could then use to destroy any subwoofer placed in the bed of a pickup or in the rear of a car and used to augment Jay-Z music.
Ok, but I think it should be Dan Fogelberg.
I spent some time living in the local barrio a couple of years ago and the only thing that I really couldn’t deal with was a tuba through a sub-woofer. That is seriously wrong on several levels, trust me.
Hmm.
Tinfoil hats on little beings that buzz around anwering to a hive mentality?
Seems familiar.
1st Insect Reconnaissance Battalion
Our Motto
“What’s the buzz, tell me what’s happening”
They have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on queens, too.
I wonder what DARPA has against super-jew insect warriors? I’d take a couple of bee swarms with me next time I went on a CA mission…I guarantee the people I visited would sure listen to what I had to say. I mean, if they weren’t running away and screaming in terror that is…
Chimps. Chimps in camo with machine guns. More effective than insects and a whole lot funnier.
OOOOoooooh. Even better. Have the chimps driving the little Israeli tanks. You know. For the jew angle.
No one expects the Spanish Exposition!
Er, I mean, no one expects exposition … in … Spanish and why is everyone looking at me like that?
Oh, I gotcha all beat:
Israel is developing a robot the size of a hornet to attack terrorists.
Hmm. Sorry to be boring.
The chips are not a new idea, though this particular implementation is nicely innovative, especially the bit about using fats to keep them isolated and moist. Similar ideas are used nowadays in all sorts of detectors for trace amounts of poisons, etc. The new gizmos the troops are carrying for detection of chemical and biological assaults work that way.
But bees? Esmerelda Weatherwax will hear of this, and somebody’s gonna be sorry.
Regards,
Ric
Just let me know when Granny Weatherwax shows up. That woman can party.
Of course, I really meant Nanny Ogg in that last comment.
Oh the embarassment!
A PRATCHETT POSEUR. THAT’S SADDER THAN A BARREL FULL OF DROWNED KITTENS.
Friend: SQUEAK!
Flying chimps. With machine guns and little bellboy caps. And red jackets.
Damn straight I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog, too.
All these comments, and no one has managed an “Eric the Half-A-Bee” joke?
I question the timing…