Back in September we talked about Roboroach, the firstcyborg insect that came with its very own Bluetooth enabled backpack plugged into its brain. ‘Minor’ brain surgery later and Roboroach could be fully controlled via your smartphone. It’s the first remote controlled inspect that was made commercially available. Of course the surgery involved cutting off the roach’s antennae and adding electrodes to its body via a needle through its thorax. Doesn’t seem too minor. So naturally that had to have some moral implications and like I said then, PETA and or any other animal right movements would have a field day with this even though the technology was created as a way of showcasing technological advancement in neuroscience and brain development. But if comic books and movies have taught anything useful it’s that the road to future damnation and the apocalypse is paved with good technological advancements.


Backyard Brains, the guys behind the Roboraoch project now find themselves in a bit of a jam as animal right activists are claiming that this procedure and the project in general, amount to animal cruelty. I guess it would the same as putting an electric shock inducing collar on a dog to train it. Roboroach with roach, backpack and app can be bought for $99. While any kind of tech advancement in medicine or otherwise is always a step forward for the human race, it seems like a step backward when it’s at the expense of a living creature and then used for profit. There’s has a very ‘Evil-Scientist’ type connotation here. Intellectuals from philosophy professors to Animal behavior scientists all agree that Roboroach is wrong and could have damaging consequences for children who could grow up to think its ok to experiment on animals if it means scientific or monetary advancement. These are the future cosmetics engineers keeping rabbits and monkey’s in cages with make up on their faces.

I’m all for experimentation and technological advancement and maybe there’s a small margin for animal testing depending on the requirements, but it’s a gray area, at best. Schools use frogs and mice sometimes for dissection, laboratories use mice and apes for drug tests, and even humans are used in psychology tests which might not involve surgery but it is experimentation nonetheless. It’s not always possible to make advancements without these tests and experiments and even the most persistent of us all will have to admit, it’s sometimes a necessary evil. Dead subjects won’t give you the results you require to test new medicines for cancer or Aids or diabetes et al. So the line in the sand can sometimes get a little blurry when it comes to medical sciences.

So in an attempt to prevent the impending techno-apocalypse, animal activists are pushing for the project to be discontinued. However one report stated that a spokeswoman said the cockroaches are treated humanely and the backpack does not hurt them. Perhaps that’s true, and perhaps the project even enables further development in neurosciences, but selling a cockroach with an electronic backpack surgically implanted to be controlled by a smartphone like a remote control car? now that’s a little morbid. What do you think? Let this kind of ‘experimentation’ stay in the lab where it belongs, and not in the hands easily influences kids.

[Via – Mirror]