Japan News

Japan Is Working On Cyborg Cockroaches

So scientists at the Digital Nature Group presented their new project, which is making cyborg cockroaches to help humanity. Now, as your typical anime fan who watched Terra Formars, I immediately thought about the potential downfall of our species. However, here’s how they described the “Calmbots”:

Calmbots are a new interface that possesses living creature traits such as mobility, self-maintanence, and latent ability. By controlling multiple cockroaches with electrical stimulation, you can use them as a pixel-like display, to carry an object, or hold a pen to draw a line

Here’s the video of what they can do:

The idea is for the cyborg cockroaches to: “In the future, they’ll appear out of nowhere without us recognizing it, fulfilling its task and then hiding.”

We all know the worst case scenario – years pass by, they get smarter than us, humans ended. In the Terra Formars show I mentioned (back in 2016), humanity tried to colonize Mars with cockroaches’ corpses (if I remember correctly). However, the insects mutated instead, and our species learns the horror of this 500 years later. Was a pretty interesting show, though I only watched the anime and am yet to check out the manga.

All jokes aside, it’s an impressive feat, so let’s hope it doesn’t have an ending from a fictional story!

Source: Digital Nature Group Website & YouTube Channel
© 2015-2020 University of Tsukuba, Strategic Research Platform towards Digital Nature Powered by Pixie Dust Technologies, Inc.

Marko Jovanovic

Editor in Chief in charge of editing/posting stuff at Anime Corner. Big fan of shonen (stans One Piece and Gintama), though enjoys most anime. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about anything you see here.

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Marko Jovanovic
Tags: Japan