"hybrid-insect cyborgs"

Going by Quimby's the other day, C. and J. came across this nice double-sided pamphlet. Seemed innocuous and charming enough: green paper, insects, smiling girl.

Closer inspection, and it describes a project called "Micro and Nano Electro Mechanical Systems: Technology Engineering Metamorphosis" which is about basically making cyborg insects as micro-surveillance robots for the military.


What seems quite like science fiction is in fact one of the many schemes that scientists at DARPA have cooked up. It looks like this little one sheet pamphlet (and more in a series?) were created by Matt Kessler and Zach Huelsing at Eye Rocket.

A nice combination of science/almost sci-fiction/political commentary, these pamphlets operate in a variety of nice ways.


As for this bug-robots thing, DARPA scientists write:

"Imagine an intelligent micro air vehicle maneuvering around wires, birds, even bullets, without human controls, perhaps being piloted by a hybrid-insect cyborg"

Perhaps the next pamphlet will be about PANDA?