Tag: DARPA

Gee, nothing could ever possibly go wrong with this:

The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever – or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year (PDF), Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

Of course, Darpa’s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work – so they’ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create “tamper proof” cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, “similar to a serial number on a handgun.” And if that doesn’t work, don’t worry. In case Darpa’s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they’re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch.

Sounds like the procurement guys at DARPA have watched too many sci fi movies. Or too few.

BioDesign.

Why don’t they just call it the Genesis project and be done with it?  At least that might get the teabaggers interested.

(tip: sound ON for maximum effect.)



Or maybe The Terminator would be more appropriate?

Frankenstein?  

Boys from Brazil?

Jurassic Park?

Bladerunner?

Take your pick.  

Earth to DARPA: when it comes to genetic weaponry, happy endings only ever happen in the movies.

Update:

And speaking of genetically engineered killing machines, we certainly can’t forget these guys:

The Dalek Project fits quite nicely, I think.

I’m not making this up but I wish I were.

If you really want to see some horrifying developments in the Pentagon’s War On All That Is Decent, just google DARPA sometime and see what they’re up to.  

One of the things they’re working on is creating cyborg insects.   (Cyborg soldiers are on their plate as well).    They seem to have succeeded with a Cyborg Beetle, able to control the bug with remote-control.  

I suppose for those on whom Fox News doesn’t work, people will soon be manipulated in other, more direct ways (that’s a joke, sort of).

The creation of a cyborg insect army has just taken a step closer to reality. A research team at the University of California Berkeley recently announced that it has successfully implanted electrodes into a beetle allowing scientists to control the insect’s movements in flight. “We demonstrated the remote control of insects in free flight via an implantable radioequipped miniature neural stimulating system,” the researchers reported in their new paper for Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. ” The pronotum mounted system consisted of neural stimulators, muscular stimulators, a radio transceiver-equipped microcontroller and a microbattery.”

The research, supported by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is part of a broader effort, called the HI-MEMS program, which has been looking specifically at different approaches to implanting micro-mechanical systems into insects in order to control their movements.

A number of research teams working on this ambitious project have reported specific successes. For example, researchers at the University of Michigan have demonstrated implants in a flying moth, but the Berkeley scientists appear to have demonstrated an impressive degree of control over their insect’s flight; they report being able to use an implant for neural stimulation of the beetle’s brain to start, stop, and control the insect in flight. They could even command turns by stimulating the basalar muscles.

Eventually, the mind-controlled insects could be used to “serve as couriers to locations not easily accessible to humans or terrestrial robots,” they note.

Just another lovely development in the War On terror drugs humanity.

For more nightmare-inducing DARPA projects, just click here:

http://gizmodo.com/tag/darpa/

Keep in mind, this is the stuff they LET us know about.