Yep, it’s true. Freaking zombie robots controlled by a severed head. There have been competing viewpoints even on this board about whether the zombie apocalypse or the inevitable war with the machines would end humanity, but did any of us think that it would be both and that the SkyNet terminators would be metallic zombies?
Quote from the linked article:
O.K. so it’s just a dead moth’s head that’s running the machine. Nothing to worry about. Just an inhuman severed head brought back to an undead existence to control an emotionless machine.
Don’t be silly, y’all, there’s no threat here. All we’ll have to do is rig up some giant searchlights and the Zombie-Moth Cyborgs will helplessly circle around them until we pick them off at our leisure.
Umm…but for giant zombie robot worms, we can just wait until it rains. And then we can skoosh them while they’re wriggling around on the sidewalk. (Maybe the Army can send in the tanks.)
On a slightly more serious note, this does fascinate me. I’ve read about numerous projects where an animal’s (rats, monkeys, insects) brain is used to control something mechanical, but this is a bit different. The brain on this one isn’t attached to it’s body - its brain no longer has a natural life support system. It’s dead, and yet they can still use it as a processor. How?
Naze naraba, gambatta kara da.
(How? They tried their best and sucked it up. Heh, it loses all humor in English and probably wasn’t funny in Japanese either but I’m tipsy soooo bring on the terminators, punk!)
I don’t really know much about moths, but from what I remember from high school biology most insects don’t have brains per se - not in the sense we do.
What they have is a string of interconnected nervous clusters that essentially function on pure reflex - stimuli goes in, automated response goes out, action is triggered. At the very basic level it’s just an electrical relay network, except the switches are stuff like “there’s light over there” or “air is blowing on hair this side of the body”.
And, again AFAIR neurons don’t need any external energy input to transmit their binary data, although I suppose that they’re subject to decay over time like any other cell.
I’m sure a bio major Doper will come along shortly to call me an idiot and debunk every last part of what I just said :).
But yeah, like you I admit to being kinda fascinated by the idea.
I mean, of course in the fullness of time the giant moth robots will be weaponized and humanity as we know it will be burned to cinders by undead monstrosities motivated by pure murder instinct and wielding giant wave motion guns, that’s a given. But the process is still cool as hell. When it happens, we won’t have anything to regret
The part of the article which I found absolutely blood-curdling was:
I have encountered many fellow motorists who are on the roads driving with, at best, a moth’s brain. God help us if they start putting actual insects behind the wheel! :eek:
Tanks, nothin’… by then, American technology will have the ultimate deterrent - Giant Robin Aerial Bot Zombies (Code Name GRABZ). Take that, you viscous vermiformes!
