Most people in the world would think of words such as “disgusting” or “repulsive” when it comes to roaches, but not this team at North Carolina State University. The team at NCSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is using cockroach's uncanny survivability to possibly save humans. They have plans for using them in buildings that have fallen to rubble to find people who could possibly be trapped. The team designed a backpack for the roaches that fire of wireless signals at the roach’s antennae and other sensory organs to guide it to a desired destination. The researchers see these remote-controlled roaches as an alternative to small-scale robots, which at that scale is both difficult and expensive.
While this is both inexpensive, and life saving. The thought of respecting all organisms still come into play, and while not all animal rights groups are necessarily this in itself is bad, but they are afraid of what paths this may open up as far as using animals for things humans deem too dangerous themselves.
I personally think this is great, but much like the animal activist groups, and interested in how people interpret this new form of ideology. Will they take it too far and possibly place animals in harm that shouldn’t be? Or will science be able to control itself and not place animals at risk. While cockroaches are indeed capable of navigating hostile areas, it still puts the idea in my head of “is it right?” and I’m sure many people are in the same situation as me.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=remote-controlled-roaches
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