The Navy’s Now Creating Cyborg Bomb-Detecting Locusts And I Personally Think This Idea Is Horrible

I feel like every time I turn on the TV or go on the internet, I just come across more proof that scientists the world over have never read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Or even seen the movie. It’s like these guys wake up everyday and think “what’s the most unnatural thing we can try to create today that will definitely backfire in the long run and piss off both the natural order of the world as well as whatever higher power exists?” Like these scientists who are creating cyborg locusts that can detect bombs.

Via Christian Science Monitor:

“The Office of Naval Research is awarding Washington University professors a three-year, $750,000 grant to develop bomb-sniffing locusts – a surprising alternative to current explosive detection animals, which include dogs and dolphins.

Why locusts? They have a remarkably sensitive olfactory system, thousands of times more complex than the best chemical detection devices available. So rather than attempt to engineer a similar system biomedical engineer Barani Raman decided to harness the original.

Why reinvent the wheel? Why not take advantage of the biological solution?” he asked in a press release. “That is the philosophy here. Even the state-of-the-art miniaturized chemical sensing devices have a handful of sensors. On the other hand, if you look at the insect antenna, where their chemical sensors are located, there are several hundreds of thousands of sensors and of a variety of types.””

Fuck that. Why? Well, here’s what a locust swarm looks up close and personal.

I’m definitely failing to see where the logic is in putting that aboard a fucking aircraft carrier. “Oh no, the Japanese are attacking again. Launch the Navy.” “Uh, we can’t sir, a swarm of robot locusts destroyed all the ships.” “Who thought that was a good idea?” Well, not me. I’m calling it right now, this is the first sign of the apocalypse. There’s a book called Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut in which the military decides they’re sick of their troops getting stuck in swamps so they invent this particle or some shit that gets rid of water, essentially ending the world. That’s what we’re seeing here. A bunch of generals are getting too creative and giving scientists free range to end the world.