Chinese Scientists Create Cyborg Bees That Can Be Controlled Like Drones for Undercover Military Missions (futurism.com)
from mas@jlai.lu to technology@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 00:47
https://jlai.lu/post/22560366

cross-posted from: jlai.lu/post/22560365

#technology

threaded - newest

besselj@lemmy.ca on 13 Jul 01:09 next collapse

Y’all remember that #DeathTo Black Mirror episode?

Reverendender@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jul 03:04 collapse

We all do, yes

FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 01:11 next collapse

Not-so-fun fact: Surveillance drones, that we know of, go back as far as the Vietnam War.

The first UAV attacks date back to the middle of the 1800’s.

HowAbt2morrow@futurology.today on 13 Jul 02:49 collapse

No they don’t.

curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Jul 04:36 collapse

The first UAV in the 1800s were incendiary balloons, Austrian attack on Venice.

A. M. Low was a pioneer in rocket guidance systems, planes, etc. In 1917 the “flying bomb” (a controlled airplane) was developed, and later developed into the Kettering Bug - a bomb with wings - which had a terrible success rate and never got used in combat. You can see a reproduction in Dayton, Ohio, at the museum for the Air Force.

Target drones (training drones for military pilots) were made by Radioplane and sold to the Army in the 1940s. That led to the SD-2 Overseer in the 1950s.

Which led to the Lightning Bug, based on target drone designs, used to monitor the Chinese, then Vietnam. They would deploy a parachute so they could be picked up mid-air so they wouldn’t fall into foreign hands. China shot down a few of them and set the shot them down and set those drones up for public display.

Drones have a much longer history than you’d think!

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 15:40 next collapse

Soviet surveillance drones, which Ukraine has used a few times as suicide drones, were not much more complex than a radiola. Had a flight program in the form of perforated tin disc, if I remember correctly, and an electro-mechanical system of following those instructions (not a computer). They’d be just sent on preprogrammed routes, make photos, those retrieved and analyzed on return. No radio communications, stealthy enough for their purpose.

cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Jul 15:56 collapse
gointhefridge@lemmy.zip on 13 Jul 02:15 next collapse

Well that’s awful.

01189998819991197253@infosec.pub on 13 Jul 02:58 next collapse

The power source is about 30 times heavier than the bee can carry. Here’s for hoping that they absolutely never are able to make this project work.

Reverendender@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jul 03:03 next collapse

What? You don’t want bad actors hacking the bees and sending them inside your ears to cause fatal internal damage? Why are you against progress?!

01189998819991197253@infosec.pub on 13 Jul 03:14 next collapse

Alright. You convinced me lol

Reverendender@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jul 03:20 collapse
rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 15:35 collapse

Will happen anyway, so rather embrace it as early as possible so that we would be those bad actors and not the sucker good actors on the receiving end.

Cocodapuf@lemmy.world on 15 Jul 00:29 collapse

That’s not how that works though…

rottingleaf@lemmy.world on 15 Jul 06:07 collapse

Actually that’s exactly how it works, never did it help against a weaponized technology to yell how immoral it is, while adopting it sometimes did.

levzzz@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 06:03 collapse

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyways. Because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.

SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 13 Jul 18:56 collapse

Unfortunately, even though it sounds adorable, that’s a myth. There’s nothing about bees or bumblebees that would make their flight theoretically problematic.

Archangel1313@lemmy.ca on 13 Jul 04:14 next collapse

But not for pollination?

LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 06:19 next collapse

No, only war

Womble@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 07:20 collapse

Why would you bother mind controlling bees in order to make them do the thing they would be doing anyway?

DancingBear@midwest.social on 13 Jul 08:44 collapse

Would be cool if you could control the little bee to do a dance that makes the whole hive swarm to a very specific place.

TWeaK@lemmy.today on 13 Jul 04:35 next collapse

The researchers are hoping that the tiny cyborg could allow the military to infiltrate hard-to-access space or be used in search and rescue missions to find survivors in natural disasters, according to a research paper.

In other words the researchers are clawing at reasons to justify their research. The Chinese military aren’t looking into this, following commands 9 out of 10 times isn’t reliable enough to even start development.

This is about as strategically useful as a bluetooh controlled robo-roach.

svtdragon@lemmy.world on 13 Jul 16:39 collapse

If you scale it up you can probably send more than one right? Send ten and nine work. That’s not nothing.

swelter_spark@reddthat.com on 14 Jul 07:47 collapse

This seems cruel.

wkk@lemmy.world on 14 Jul 08:29 collapse