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Biohybrid Jellyfish Explore The Ocean
(Cyborg jellyfish)
Now we have biohybrid moon jellyfish. Nicole Wu, an engineer at CU Boulder, built her first cyborg jellyfish in 2020, testing them in the shallow ocean waters off the coast of Woods Hole in Massachusetts. She describes the system as being akin to a pacemaker for the heart, electrically stimulating the jellies' swimming muscles to cause contractions, thereby steering them in a preferred direction. While moon jellies don't have brains or spinal cords, they do have rudimentary overlapping nerve nets that are well-suited to Wu's purposes.(Via arstechnica.)
Technovelgy readers know that this idea was thoroughly explored by science fiction writers. Dr. Amit Lal got the idea for remote-controlled insects from the 1990 science fiction novel Sparrowhawk, by Thomas A. Easton. Dr. Easton, a professor of science at Thomas College. In the novel, he writes about genetically engineered animals that are greatly enlarged, and then outfitted with implanted control structures.
(UM Cyborg Beetle Microsystem)
"There's the brain, the spinal chord, the motor centers. A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain." She explained how the controller, a computer, translated movements of the tiller or control yoke and the throttle and brake pedals into electrical signals and routed them as appropriate to the jets or the genimal's motor centers, triggering the genimal's own nervous system into commanding its muscles to serve the driver. All the necessary programming was built into the hardware...
(Read more about the Roachster)
I also must note, that fans of Philip K. Dick will not be surprised to learn that he anticipated this idea in 1964 in his novel Lies, Inc.. See the reference for the housefly monitor.
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Biohybrid Jellyfish Explore The Ocean
As predicted, and detailed, by science fiction writers!
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