The U.S. military Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has seen the future, and the future is bugs. Bionic bugs.

DARPA, the visionary arm of the Pentagon, is tasked with anticipating and shaping the battlefield of the future. Like the famous RAND corporation with a militant twist, DARPA has initiated such eye-popping projects in the past as robot super dogs, pilot-less interceptors, mind-reading technology for soldiers, invisibility projects and Buck Rogers-like space weaponry.

Now DARPA is working hard to establish an array of cybernetic insects. The program, "Hybrid Insect Micro Electromechanical Systems" (HI-MEMS), is part of their Controlled Biological and Biomimetic Systems program and seeks to fuse mechanical micro-technologies to living insects creating a machine-bug amalgam. The microsystems that DARPA calls payloads will draw parasitic power from the insects, work with the insects nerve or muscles, and take control of the insect.

Zombie insect spies and battle bugs

DARPA sees a world—not too far in the future—where cyborgian insects will eavesdrop on enemy soldiers and enemy headquarters. So-called battle bugs are also being designed. It brings a whole new meaning to "bugging."

Armored flies, incendiary beetles, marauding moths…no, those aren't the nightmares of a frightened entomologist. They're future military and battlefield micro-surveillance weapons designed by brilliant tech geeks in secret Pentagon labs.

Those zombiefied insects will be remotely directed in a way that's similar to drone aircraft used in combat theaters today. DARPA already points proudly to past success with their interfacing project.

Much More Here: http://www.helium.com/items/2325145-darpa-creating-super-bionic-ins...