Cyborg

With Elon Musk advocating the need for humans to merge with machines and a transhumanist politician running for Governor in California, an intellectual movement that sat on the fringes throughout the 20th century is poised to hit the mainstream.

Researchers from the University of Maryland have created an electrogenetic “switching” system in bacterial cells that influences the way the single-celled organisms behave, linking organic and electronic systems together.

Researchers have developed a system that a living dragonfly can wear like a backpack, allowing engineers to steer it remotely to deliver payloads, conduct reconnaissance and even guide pollination.

There’s a whole world out there full of things we have no idea about – different types of radiation, sounds, and colors - and a new body sensor called the North Sense is here to help you experience a part of this augmented reality.

​For years, scientists have been experimenting with biobots, insects fitted with various electronic systems. Now, engineers will tap into the highly-tuned olfactory system of locusts, using them like tiny cyborg sniffer dogs to detect the smell of chemicals used in explosives.

The dream of melding biological and man-made machinery is now a little more real with the announcement that Columbia Engineering researchers have successfully harnessed a chemical energy-producing biological process to power a solid state CMOS integrated circuit.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have succeeded in getting cyborg-like "biobot" cockroaches to move towards sounds. Down the road, such insects may be used to locate victims at disaster sites.

Why go to the trouble of designing tiny flying robots from scratch, when there are already ready-made insects that are about the right size? That's the thinking behind research being conducted at North Carolina State University, which is aimed at converting moths into "biobots."

MIT's "supernumerary robotic fingers" extend from either side of the user's dominant hand, and are attached to a device that's worn around the wrist. The idea behind them is that (among other things) they could allow users to perform tasks that usually require two hands, using only one.

Face computers like Google Glass have their advantages. But when you start talking about the disadvantages of Glass, one of the big topics that keeps coming up is a general disconnection from your surroundings. We share some thoughts on whether Google Glass makes you more or less connected.

A team led by North Carolina State University's Dr. Edgar Lobaton is developing software that would allow "swarms" of living remote-control cockroaches to map hazardous environments such as collapsed buildings.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have used the Xbox Kinect to put cyborg cockroaches on autopilot.