In an announcement posted on government Web sites last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, says it is seeking “innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect cyborgs,” by implanting tiny devices into insect bodies while the animals are in their pupal stage.

As an insect metamorphoses from a larva to an adult, the solicitation notice says, its “body goes through a renewal process that can heal wounds and reposition internal organs around foreign objects, including tiny (mechanical) structures that might be present.”

The goal is to create technology that can achieve “the delivery of an insect within five meters of a specific target located at hundred meters away, using electronic remote control, and/or global positioning system.” Once at the target, “the insect must remain stationary either indefinitely or until otherwise instructed … (and) must also be able to transmit data from (Department of Defense) relevant sensors … includ(ing) gas sensors, microphones, video, etc.”

Although flying insects like dragonflies and moths are “of great interest,” the document says, “Hopping and swimming insects could also meet final demonstration goals.”

We must have some readers who qualify for this kind of research!