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Just in case you were craving an army of beetle minions to do your bidding, a group of engineers in Singapore has invented a new kind of "biobot." Fitted out with a microcontroller and electrodes implanted in the muscles of its legs, it's a cyborg beetle that can be made to run faster or slower at the whim of its human master.
Similar kinds of biobots have been built before—the last few years have seen the invention of everything from ratbots to mind-controlled cockroaches—but this is the first variable-speed model. That's because the engineers are directly controlling the insect's leg muscles rather than driving it by manipulating signals in its brain or antennae.
The engineers, who report on their creation in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, admit that there are a few drawbacks to making robots out of living animals. "There are demerits and disadvantages in insect platform due to living organism including limited lifespan, relatively narrow operation temperature range," they write. That said, the team is convinced the good outweighs the bad.
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