Brain implant turns locust into a tracker dog
Biological component: Locust Size: 5 cm
Why start from scratch, when nature already has the solution? So though Washington University when it aimed to create a flying robot with an artificial nose that could sniff its way to bombs. Locusts have an excellent sense of smell, which no artificial sensors can compete with, so instead of building a robot from scratch, the scientists chose to “develop” the locust into a robot. The project has not been completed yet, but scientists aim to implant sensors into the insect’s brain, so they know when it smells explosives. A transmitter on the locust’s back will send the signals to a receiver that shines a green light, when the animal smells a bomb. The locust’s sense of smell is in its antennas, which are equipped with hundreds of thousands of scent receptors.