The patient is submerged in an ice bath as an anesthetic for its impending surgery.
When sufficient numbness is achieved, University of Queensland student Lachlan Fitzgerald begins the procedure, carefully attaching a tiny circuit board to its back to create a part-living, part-machine biohybrid robot.
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The patient is, in fact, a beetle, and the backpack-like device sends electrical pulses to its antennae, allowing Fitzgerald to control its movements, while tapping into its natural agility.
“Only when it leaves the desired path that we want it to be on do we intervene and tell it to actually go this way instead of the way it was actually heading,” says Fitzgerald, who is studying mathematics and engineering.
He hopes to create an army of insect-machine search and rescue workers. “We see a future where after an urban disaster like an earthquake or a bombing, where humans can’t safely access the disaster site, being able to send in a bunch of cyborg beetles to navigate the disaster zone quickly and efficiently,” he says.
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