A team of mechanical engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has found a way to electronically control cockroaches without injuring them. In their paper published in the journal npj Flexible Electronics, the group describes the new technology they used to remotely control the cockroaches and the benefits of doing so.
Prior research teams have created a variety of cyborg cockroaches, but they all had one feature in common—they all involved attaching probes to the insect’s nervous system—procedures that led to damage to the insect, and likely some degree of pain.
In this new effort, the researchers noted that damaging cockroaches during attempts to control them results in a very short life expectancy, which then results in very little payoff for a lot of work. They also suggest such research is unethical because of the pain inflicted on the cockroaches. In this new effort, they have found a way to control cockroaches that does not involve cutting into them, resulting in a much longer lifespan.
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