It's hopping on the al transferring to the N.

Q.

R.

Union Square and arriving at its final destination Times Square.

Eventually your commute becomes second nature.

You do it without thinking.

And this cockroach is not thinking either.

Instead it's being directed by a microchip in its backpack.

Yeah.

Researchers at north Carolina State University have found a way to bug a cockroach by hacking its senses.

Researchers can remote control a roach to go wherever they want, but why would they do this?

I'm all turbo skirt and I'm an assistant professor in electrical and computer Engineering department at north Carolina State University.

Our idea is a swarm of cyber roaches that carries little microphones on their backpacks and those backpacks as very sensitive sensors and very efficient radios.

Stay form radio network and we help our cyber roaches to decide in which direction to go.

How does it work, cockroaches use their antennae to sense and understand the environment around them.

So when an antenna touches something solid, it sends an electrical signal to their brain to turn in a different direction.

Albert Buskirk harnesses this behavior by attaching his own electrodes to the roach's antenna.

Under anesthesia.

These electrodes stimulate the antenna to send electrical signals to the brain and allow boss kurt and his team to direct the roach where to go.

These electrodes are connected to the roaches backpack, which acts like an extension of the roach's brain.

It consists of a battery, a microchip with a radio to communicate with the controller and microphones to triangulate sound.

Yeah, you can actually try this at home by purchasing a kit from backyard brains to create your own cyber roach cockroach not included.

The cockroaches are available even in pet stores and uh, they are not passed insects, their exotic pet insects from Madagascar.

This is a chamber where we keep our cockroaches and observe their behavior.

Um, cockroaches are amazing and they were able to survive millions of years of harsh environmental conditions and they're good crawlers and there good climbers.

So in this chamber we try to understand what as cockroaches do during their day life and during their nightlife.

So far, this tech controls a single roach.

But what about an intrusion of cockroaches?

And what could you use this intrusion for?

It was in 1999, I joined the search and rescue efforts after the earthquake in Turkey, where about 20,000 people lost their lives.

One of the most critical questions is where are the living surviving victims?

You need to find those people in a short amount of time.

Time is very critical.

And right now there is no technology out there that can provide this with the power of an intrusion.

He can send his cyber roaches as first responders into deadly environments to locate and rescue potential survivors.

For example, during a search and rescue mission, they would release an intrusion of cyber roaches to naturally roam the search area as the roaches explore the space.

They gathered data that is used to create a three D map of the environment.

If a roach travels outside the search area, the computer will automatically stimulate its antenna to direct it back in.

Once a roach detects the sounds of a survivor beacons from fixed radio towers would activate and locate the cyber roach and thus the survivor.

I allow cockroaches.

Some people may think that they are very ugly, but roaches may also think that humans are ugly.

We had very excited demonstrations in the laboratory environment and we are ready to bring this technology into simulations of collapsed buildings to test it and find out what would be the next level of challenges.

These cyber roaches are just the first step in cyborg insects.

DARPA is already funding research into controlling the flight of cyborg beetles and moths as potential surveillance drones.

So watch what you say because sunday soon, Big Brother could be bugging your room with an actual bug.

Check out more episodes of cyborg nation by subscribing to the wired channel.

Yeah.

Mhm.